early-season struggles to a mental block, rather than lingering pain from his hip injury, and attributed his improvement at the end of the year to an increased sense of confidence and decreased stress. On June 9, 2017, shortly before the 2017 NHL Expansion Draft, the Flyers signed Gostisbehere to a six-year, $27 million contract. He began the 2017–18 season playing on the second defensive pair with Robert Hägg, only briefly teaming with Ivan Provorov on the top line. During a December 23 game against the Columbus Blue Jackets, however, Hakstol rearranged the lines and paired Gostisbehere with Provorov once again. Impressed with the results, Hakstol kept the pair together through the end of the season. Being paired with Provorov, a two-way player who Gostisbehere admitted was "years better than me defensively", helped him improve on the defensive end, putting up stronger shot suppression and defensive zone starts. Gostisbehere also continued to generate offensively: on November 9, 2017, with an assist to Jakub Voráček in a 3–1 win against the Blackhawks, Gostisbehere became the fastest defenseman in Flyers history to score his 100th NHL point, doing so in 155 games. The previous record holder, Behn Wilson, did so in 163 games. By the end of the year, Gostisbehere had put up 150 career points, the most of any Flyers defenseman in his first three seasons. Gostisbehere scored 13 goals and 52 assists in the 2017–18 regular season, and was awarded his second Barry Ashbee Trophy in three years. 2018–21 Coming off of a successful 2017–18 season, Gostisbehere referred to the 2018–19 season as "the toughest season I've been through personally in my four years". He dropped to 37 total points, nine goals and 28 assists, as well as a −20 plus-minus. He admitted after the season that a knee surgery he had suffered during an October 22 game against the Colorado Avalanche had continued to bother him throughout the season, limiting his effectiveness on the ice. That offseason, Gostisbehere spent time at the Flyers' training facility in Voorhees Township, New Jersey, focusing on improving the mental aspect of his performance. Gostisbehere's struggles continued into the 2019–20 season, culminating in a three-game benching in November. He had begun to improve, scoring 12 points in 40 games, before suffering an injury in a 5–4 overtime loss to the Hurricanes on January 7, 2020. The injury required arthroscopic surgery, which took Gostisbehere out of