Concerning Brayden Schenn Part 2

VANCOUVER, CANADA – DECEMBER 30: Brayden Schenn #10 of the Philadelphia Flyers celebrates the tying goal of third period against the Vancouver Canucks on December 30, 2013 at Rogers Arena in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. (Photo by Marissa Baecker/Getty Images)

This past Saturday I looked at a rumour that had Brayden Schenn as a possible trade target of the Oilers. That post is here. While writing that post, laying the foundation for why it probably wouldn’t be much of a fit based on a bunch of factors, I realized something quite elementary. Brayden Schenn may not entirely be the cause of his own poor numbers.

Schenn’s wowys were bad… really bad. Quoted form the original post…

Most Flyers’ players, last season, has had better possession results while NOT on the ice with Brayden Schenn. Of the 13 players that spent more than 100 minutes with Schenn during the 13-14 season, only 2 had a better 5v5 CF% with him compared to without him.

His other fancy stats weren’t stellar either and they have him languishing in the lower half of the Flyers’ roster. The Oilers are in dire need of a second line center, and although Schenn carries a bit more size than Gagner, draft pedigree and a positive narrative among fans, to me the numbers said no way.

As I completed the first post I had the brain wave idea of checking Schenn’s wowys prior to the 13-14 season because of him playing with a declining Lecavalier and Briere. The Broadstreet articles screamed as much, alluding to the drag that may have been present, but foolishly I failed to connect the dots and verify what was happening. Hindsight jumped up pretty quick and bit me as the pre-13-14 wowys shed a whole new light on Brayden Schenn. It changed my opinion in no small terms.

A quick review of Schenn’s 13-14 season in numbers…

• Brayden Schenn has not been assigned tough competition. Of the top 10 Flyers forwards in TOI last year (>20 gp) Schenn ranked the lowest in quality of competition (Corsi QoC).
• The possession battle follows the same line. He’s 8th in FF% (47.5%) among the top 12 TOI fowards leading only Downie, Lecavalier, Hall and Rinaldo.
• Relative possession – 9th of 12 in FF% Rel (-2.4%).
• He’s among a group of players starting in the offensive zone more often with his own # sitting at ~55%.
• Brayden Schenn spent 12:52 on the ice short handed last season. 9 seconds a game. He’s not a penalty killer at this point.
• For even strength scoring Schenn ranks 7th of 12 and just outside of the top 6 producers at 1.69 PTS/60.

Instead of re-posting Schenn’s 13-14 wowys alone here is the year over year ‘With You’ comparisons, with his most frequent teammates…

I don’t think anyone can come to a conclusive assumption from just that, but a few items jumped out at me…

• Of Brayden Schenn’s 7 most common D teammates this past year (by TIO), he posted a <50% 5v5 CF with all of them.
• Of those 7, 6 carried over with the team from 2012-13. He saw a drop in CF% with 4 of the 6. Meszaros and Gustafsson are the only exceptions (sample size beware, he only played 47 minutes with Meszaros in 12-13).
• Schenn’s 2nd most common played with D man, brother Luke Schenn, saw the largest ‘With You’ drop from 12-13 to 13-14.
• Mark Streit, a traditionally strong possession player relative to some traditionally horrible Islanders’ teams, didn’t see any sort of increase in his CF% when he came to a much better Flyers team. He posted barely above his previous 5 year average of 49.7% with 50.1% at 5v5 and 49.7% with Brayden Schenn.

Some interesting tidbits but, like I said, nothing conclusive.

Enter Vincent Lecavalier. Here are his CF% wowys…

I characterized Schenn in the last post as having a bit of an anchor effect on his teammates. I think this makes Lecavalier the Titanic in comparison.

Lecavalier’s without teammate numbers are a bit up and down but he’s still well within Oilers’ players CF% territory across the board. Alternatively, his teammates without are significantly better off (with one exception being Andrew Macdonald). Some observations…

• Lecavalier’s top forward line mates range from a CF% of 43.2-47.8 with
• Without, those same 4 forwards range from a CF% of 49.7 to 51.7.
• The same 7 d-men highlighted for Schenn range from a CF% of 41.0 to 52.8 (Timonen is the out-lier in 174 min but everyone else is 46.0 or below).
• Without, those same d-men range from a CF% of 48.6 to 55.7.
• The only players, of >100 min with Lecavalier, that seem to be able to withstand the gravitational pull of ‘black hole Vinny’ seem to be Read and Timonen and even then they see drops of 2.4 and 2.9 respectively.
• Mark Streit’s CF% without Lecavalier would have been his best 5v5 CF% since 2007-2008 had he not been, presumably, saddled with a large chunk of ‘black hole Vinny’ time. While on the ice with VL, 46.0%. Without VL, 51.3%.
• Lecavlalier was no better without Streit and actually worse at 44.8% CF.

The biggest piece of evidence from the Lecavalier table tipping my opinion of Schenn? He was almost a break even player last year without Lecavalier and Lecavalier wasn’t any better without Schenn.

It makes me seriously revisit the level of disdain I first felt towards Schenn when looking at his fancy stats. If I had the necessary skills to suss out when Schenn and Lecavalier were on the ice together I could probably shed more light on who the culprit is. (If anyone wants to do that feel free and let me know the results)

My narrative of Schenn being a sheltered player still stands. An improved development curve would have seen him better his year over year numbers, playing tougher competition and taking on more d-zone starts. None of that has happened. That he is basically stagnant (slightly regressed even) since 2011-12 is cause for concern in this layman’s eyes.

With that said, and although he may not be a perfect fit for the Oilers, he would probably bring a bit of a different dynamic to the 2nd line. There may be a player useful to the Oilers somewhere in there. If he does end up in Edmonton as part of a blockbuster, draft day deal it probably wouldn’t be the end of the world and would probably be a slight overall upgrade over Sam Gagner. The potential for him to grow into a complete player may still be there.

Thanks for reading.

All wowys taken from Stats.HockeyAnalysis.com.

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