I looked into Emil Andrae
I can't recall if it was here or elsewhere online that some were suggesting he was a potential replacement for Rielly.
The Flyers had 3 smallish dmen. Emil was described as a "diminutive" 5'9" and low on their smallish dman totem pole.
Briere said he got Benoit for his size and his skating and that Benoit would step into their top 7, replacing Andrae and that Benoit may become a 6th dmen for them.
Tortorella was the Flyers coach for Andrae's first two seasons in Philly. The second season, Andrae played about 40 games for him on the bottom pairing and played a bunch of games in the AHL (.5x ppg in the AHL). He was 7th in dman time on ice for the Flyers
This past year, Tocchet was coach. Andrae started in the AHL. Then played about 60 NHL games being a healthy scratch about 10 times. He got that opportunity from Ristolainen's surgery. In the playoffs, he played 4 of the 10 games playing 11 mins/game. So again, he was a 7th dman for the Flyers.
At the end of season press conference, he said he was going to work on his skating and his main long-term goal was to gain full trust to be an every-game starter in the top six. So he concurred with his 7th ranking that the ice time he got revealed.
Comparing him with Rielly, Rielly is in the ~85th percentile for skating speed. Andrae is below average < 50%.
Rielly and Andrae has similar shot velocity but Rielly is considerably more accurate.
Rielly is a career .58 ppg in the NHL, 0.46 last year. Andrae is currently about .21 ppg in the NHL and .56 in the AHL which in the best case probably projects to ~.3 to .35ppg if he cracks the top 4.
Rielly's a bigger player, Andrae small.
It seems very unlikely Andrae can effectively replace Rielly. He's 25 this year so development is tapering off. His likely ceiling is probably as a 5-6 dman.