Three games, three falls to the ice for Travis Sanheim that directly led to goals for the other team. So why did head coach Alain Vigneault still send the 23-year-old defenseman out for his regular shifts when so many seemed to end in disaster?



Oh, right. This is why.



The Philadelphia Flyers didn’t win on Saturday — despite controlling play from the second period through the end of overtime, they fell in an 11-round shootout against the Toronto Maple Leafs to lose 4-3 — but they left the game with one undeniable positive: the potential redemption and revitalization of Sanheim.



Prior to his highlight goal, Sanheim had been on the ice for a whopping 11 goals against in the previous 11 periods, and he deserved primary blame on more than half of them. Turnovers behind the net, wilting in the face of an aggressive forecheck and, of course, those impossible-to-forget falls — starting with last Sunday’s game in Uniondale, N.Y., it was...