Philadelphia Flyers: Brayden Schenn is Not Due for a Breakout

By Marc Naples | Aug 24, 2015

As the offseason approaches, ’tis the season for Philadelphia Flyers fans to write pieces that this year will be a breakout season for Brayden Schenn. We had our traditional such piece here just last week. I would’ve liked to write one myself, but honestly I have no idea what evidence I would use to support such a conclusion.

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Brayden Schenn just turned 24. He has been a Flyer for 4 seasons, and has yet to distinguish himself. Looking back, he came to Philadelphia with high expectations. He was arguably the real key to the Mike Richards trade, although Wayne Simmonds’ play with the Flyers has clearly surpassed Schenn’s to this point.

At the time of the trade, Schenn was coming off a season of tearing up the WHL for 53 points in 27 games, and had a tremendous World Juniors tournament, scoring 18 points in 7 games and matching the Canadian record. For these accomplishments, hockeysfuture.com ranked him the #1 prospect in the NHL that summer.

Presumably, the Philadelphia Flyers were forecasting that Schenn would grow into a #1 NHL center, or alternatively, a high scoring, above average #2. The prospect of a center corps of Giroux, Schenn and Couturier looked like a very promising future lineup. Simply put, his NHL performance since the time of that trade has not matched that expectation.

Four seasons is a long enough period to make some judgments about a player. A 24 year old is not necessarily a finished product, but it is a good chunk of evidence. Unfortunately for Schenn and the Flyers, compared to other players of approximate age and pedigree (ie high or mid 1st round picks) who are blossoming into top players, Schenn’s production has been stagnant the last 3 seasons, and overall it is well off pace.

It turns out a more appropriate peer group for Schenn are less glamorous names. These are players who are of similar age and pedigree as the players in the chart above, they’ve simply not been as successful in the NHL.

Being in this peer group is not a disaster, as many of these players could go on to have long NHL careers. It is increasingly unlikely, however, that any of them will be “top” or “elite” players. They will likely fall into roles more like second-tier contributors, or 2-way players.

Mar 21, 2015; Edmonton, Alberta, CAN; Philadelphia Flyers forward Brayden Schenn (10) skates against the Edmonton Oilers at Rexall Place. Mandatory Credit: Perry Nelson-USA TODAY Sports

Schenn has actually been relatively successful compared to many other centers taken with relatively high picks in his draft year, such as Peter Holland (#15), Louis LeBlanc (#18), and Jacob Josefson (#20). The 2009 NHL draft is turning out to be a pretty weak draft.

This offseason has been pretty telling for Brayden Schenn. On the one hand, teammate Sean Couturier had a prominent role for Canada’s world championships team and also signed a long term contract with the Philadelphia Flyers. On the other hand, Schenn made the Canada team but was often a scratch, and the Flyers didn’t offer him an extension.

There is still time for Schenn to grow, but he needs to find his identity as an NHL player. Perhaps the best bet for Schenn is to improve his offensive output enough to be a solid second line contributor, or round out his game to be a flexible 2-way forward.

He will be a restricted free agent after this season, so certainly this is a key season for him and the Philadelphia Flyers. I’ll be keeping a close eye on how he performs this season, but I’ll be doing so without any expectation of an imminent offensive breakout.

Next: Top 5 Highlights from 2014-15

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