After Emil Andrae was caught standing still for the Los Angeles Kings’ fifth goal on Thursday, Flyers coach John Tortorella appeared to tell associate coach Brad Shaw to stop playing the defenseman on the ESPN+ broadcast.

Shaw wasn’t listening closely. Although he left him on the bench for nearly seven minutes, he sat Andrae out twice in the final four minutes as the game was out of reach and the Kings were on their way to a 7-3 win.

On Friday, similar to Tortorella’s hand gesture on the bench the night before, the Flyers traded Andrae back to Lehigh Valley of the American Hockey League.

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Was it performance-oriented? There’s always a taste of it, but the reality is that the Flyers don’t have an additional forward on hand. While sending a player to the AHL is not allowed during the NHL’s roster freeze, which began Thursday at 11:59 p.m., teams can recall a player. This gives the Flyers some flexibility for the next two games before embarking on a five-game, 10-day road trip after the holiday break.

Forward Nicolas Deslauriers is on injured reserve and the Flyers had two additional defensemen in Andrae and Erik Johnson. They also have three goalkeepers in the squad. According to Puckpedia, Andrae was one of only four Flyers on the roster who did not have to go through waivers to be sent off. The other three are goalkeeper Aleksei Kolosov and forwards Matvei Michkov and Tyson Foerster.

The 22-year-old Andrae played 16 minutes and 45 seconds against the Kings and was also on the ice for Foerster’s second goal of the night. He was reinserted into the lineup after being just a healthy substitute in the last three games. The blueliner played in place of Cam York, who was taken out of the lineup after being benched for nearly half of Wednesday’s loss to the Detroit Red Wings.

Andraes was scratched after being on the ice for two Columbus Blue Jackets goals in the Flyers’ 5-3 win on Dec. 10. He was also rocked in that game by Blue Jackets forward Mathieu Olivier, who received a penalty for elbowing and then answered the bell with Nick Seeler after serving his two minutes. The Flyers play the Blue Jackets on Saturday (7 p.m., NBSCP) at the Wells Fargo Center.

“One thing about Emil is he’s more of a confident kid,” Flyers assistant general manager Brent Flahr told The Inquirer. “He was always too small. He has always played with a chip on his shoulder, but he is very confident in what he does. He can make a mistake, and I think that’s what Torts likes about him – he makes a mistake without it affecting him. Some guys make mistakes and problems arise with the young players, but he just plays.”

The 5-foot-10, 189-pound Andrae has demonstrated high levels of grit, speed, puck movement and hockey IQ. He helped the Flyers in the transition game, but also had a few mistakes at the end.

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Since being recalled from Lehigh Valley on Oct. 26, Andrae played in 20 games and scored one goal and five points, including two on the power play. He averaged 19:18 of ice time, the seventh-highest on the Flyers since the recall, and tied with Garnet Hathaway and Travis Konecny ​​for the fourth-best plus-minus time (plus-3).

In the same stretch of games the Flyers played 25 times, according to Natural Stat Trick, Andrae had the team’s best Corsi percentage (54.70%) and expected goals percentage (60.25%) and saw the Flyers beat their opponents with 14 points surpassed -10 at five on five.

“He came up, I thought he really showed what he could do with the puck and his level of competition and his retrievals,” Flahr said. “He still has a lot to learn on defense, but I think he’s really impressed the coaches and he’s established himself as someone who will be an NHL player for us in the future.”