The DNA samples were stored at Sorenson Genomics, which did the laboratory testing for Ancestry. It is possible that they have not been destroyed.
You probably have not lost much, unless his surname project was based at Ancestry. Y-DNA results must be combined with a paper trail to be useful. The most important piece of genealogical information is a surname passed from father to son. Thus, you should stick with same-surname (or variant) matches, unless there is some evidence that the historical surname did not pass from father to son in one (or more) generations, i.e., a non-paternal event (NPE) occurred.
You can compare his results with surname project results at FTDNA, since they are all public. The simplest way is to pay them to transfer results, if you printed out his results. He will be in his surname project, but will not receive matches. They need to run 5 more markers and need a new sample for that. (Use Google to search for the pages at FTDNA.)
You can also search for the project from their home page and look for a matching group manually. You can make it easier by searching at YSearch to find the haplogroup of close matches, since surname results are usually sorted by it.
If the project shows the modals for each group, you should compare his to them. If he tested 46 markers, he will have 32 markers in common with FTDNA's Y-37. A 30/32 or better match is a close match. 1 or 2 more mismatches is a gray area.
Note that, in both cases you need to convert Ancestry nomenclature to FTDNA nomenclature:
DYS441, subtract 1
DYS442, subtract 5
Y-GATA-A10, subtract 2
Y-GATA-H4, subtract 1. (Some early Ancestry reports were 10 higher, in which case, you would need to subtract 11. FTDNA values are usually about 11.)