Philadelphia Flyers: Brayden Schenn Is Actually Bad
Oct 30, 2014; Tampa, FL, USA; Philadelphia Flyers center
Brayden Schenn(10) skates against the Tampa Bay Lightning during the third period at Amalie Arena. Tampa Bay Lightning defeated the Philadelphia Flyers 4-3. Mandatory Credit: Kim Klement-USA TODAY Sports
I know, I know. Brayden Schenn is currently tied for 2nd on the Philadelphia Flyers with 5 points this season, including 3 even-strength goals. How could he be bad? Well, allow me to visualize some of the underlying metrics that will hopefully convince you the Baby Schenn is actually bad, and not good.
Brayden Schenn is making his teammates worse. And how hot is this fall color scheme I used?
What you’re seeing with your eyeballs in the chart above is something I threw together courtesy of Stats.HockeyAnalysis.com. It visualizes the effect Brayden Schenn has had on his linemates at even-strength so far this year. All players that I included in the chart have all shared the ice with Schenn for at least 20 minutes.
Now, I’ve spoken of WOWY before on this very site but for those of you unfamiliar, this should help explain what it’s all about.
Let’s begin dissecting the chart now.
With the exception of Nick Shultz, who is playing some really bad hockey now, every teammate that play without Brayden sees their CF% increase, and in some cases the improvement is significant.
For example Wayne Simmonds‘ CF% without Brayden Schenn is 14.3 percentage points higher than when he shares the ice with him. That’s remarkable, and he’s not the only who improves that significantly when they are away from Brayden. Scott Laughton improves his CF% by 14.1 percentage points when he isn’t playing with Schenn.
The only Philadelphia Flyers player that actually improves when paired with Brayden is Sean Couturier. Together they sport a CF% of 50.0%, while apart, they each share a CF% below 40%.
Now while some of you may be screaming, “But the sample size is too small! You can’t judge the kid so early into the season,” I will concede that while 7 games obviously is an incredibly small sample size, this is not Brayden’s first season either.
Schenn not better than a 3rd line player. (via
)
Above you’ll see Brayden Schenn’s CF% on a 20-game rolling average for the last 4 seasons. There’s a nice uptick in 2015, but that tends to happen when you’re playing on the same line as Claude Giroux and Jakub Voracek.
That sharp drop at the end of the season was in lieu of him seeing a lot more defensive zone starts playing on the same line as Couturier and Matt Read.
Currently Schenn is on pace to score 43 goals, which is something that has same likeliness of happening as me building a functional lightsaber. Brayden has averaged a shooting percentage of 11.3% for his career. There is no chance that he will be able to sustain his 28.6% shooting percentage the whole season, that’s going to regress in time.
Brayden’s time here in Philadelphia has been fine, not spectacular, and I think it’s time we come to the hard truth that he is not going to turn into anything remotely special. He’s a 3rd line forward seeing 2nd line minutes.
Unless Schenn can somehow re-invent his game into something that isn’t more Tanner Glass than Sidney Crosby, he may not be a Philadelphia Flyer for much longer. He’s a RFA after this season.
Brayden Schenn more like Tanner than Sidney. (via
)
Data mined and charts displayed courtesy of War-On-Ice, OwnThePuck, and Stats.HockeyAnalysis.com.
Next: Teams Possibly Interested In Schenn And MacDonald