Brayden Schenn trade among Hextall’s best moves to date

Brayden Schenn‘s production last season masked serious concerns, making Hextall’s decision to trade Schenn away his best move yet.

There were a lot of Flyers players who didn’t quite meet expectations last season. Not really a surprise, considering the team’s overall performance. Some of them received more public flak than others- Claude Giroux and Andrew McDonald come to mind as especially popular scapegoats.

Brayden Schenn was mostly able to escape fans’ wrath because of his solid point production. Schenn followed his semi-breakout 2015-16 season with another 50+ point year, tallying 25 goals and 30 assists in 79 games. Most notably, Schenn took his scoring with the man advantage to a whole different level. His 17 powerplay goals actually led the entire NHL, to go along with 11 powerplay assists. It seemed to be a validation of the 4-year, $20 million contract the Flyers signed him to the previous offseason.

New year, same old Schenn

In reality, Schenn’s flashy counting stats only served to cover up a rather poor season on the whole. Schenn has always struggled to be a positive contributor at even strength, and after some minor improvements the two seasons prior, Schenn’s play-driving metrics collapsed again last year. His Relative Corsi For% of -2.6 was third worst on the team out of 12 forwards who played major minutes.

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That would be bad enough without even taking his Zone Starts into account. Schenn started his shifts in the offensive zone 57.1% of the team, third highest out of forwards. In other words, despite frequently starting his shifts at an advantage, Schenn was still one of the biggest Corsi drags on the Flyers.

Yes, Schenn scored a lot on the powerplay. A goal on a powerplay is still worth a goal. But given the strength of the players surrounding him on his powerplay unit (Giroux, Jakub Voracek, Shayne Gostisbehere, etc.), it’s important to consider if Schenn really deserves so much credit. Picture Nolan Patrick or Michael Raffl playing the high slot position in the Flyers’ lethal PP1 unit. Not so hard to imagine either of those players scoring double-digit goals in that situation, is it?

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Even strength play remains the most important aspect of successful hockey. Schenn’s poor play in this department overrides his contributions on the powerplay, considering the odds of his replacement performing well.

Hextall shows his savviness

It would have been so easy for Ron Hextall to mentally deem Brayden Schenn untradeable. No GM wants to give up a productive forward right in the middle of his prime years. But with no warning whatsoever, Hextall sent Schenn packing to the St. Louis Blues on draft day. His return? An impressive haul of two first round picks and veteran forward Jori Lehtera. The Flyers used the first of those picks to select Morgan Frost, with the second still to come in either 2018 or 2019.

Hextall displayed incredibly astute player evaluation skills in identifying Schenn as overvalued, and extracting a hefty return from a less savvy team. What makes it even more impressive is that Hextall himself was the man who extended Schenn the previous offseason. Not only did Hextall have to detect Schenn’s even strength struggles, he also had to separate his biases from the truth about Schenn’s performance.

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Not every GM is capable of evaluating his players so honestly. Hextall’s trade of Brayden Schenn was a brilliant move, and should instill even more confidence in him moving forward.

(All stats via Hockey Reference)