The Maturation of Luke Schenn

Thank You! what I’ve been saying for a couple days now, minus some of the comparables research.

So your thoughts probably have more weight

for a lot longer than the past few days. Schenn is a 22 year old kid, he’s not going to be a shut down guy at this age – virtually no D men are.

His production offensively also gives hope to the idea that he has an offensive game and potential.

Generally speaking what my main concern is on trading him now is – his value is likely at an all time low for his career thus far. We wouldn’t maximize return in any way…. which is always the issue in contemplating dealing a kid from your roster that was a top 10 overall pick who seems underwhelming at the moment.

Good post. I’d be very leery of trading Schenn for anything less than a proven difference-maker. van Riemsdyk doesn’t qualify for me.

numbers for this far back, but it’s worth pointing out that Robyn Regehr’s first 4 years in the NHL saw him go a combined -42. He wasn’t that great defensively early in his career either.

The Devil’s Advocate would point out that you’ve cherry picked some success stories just as you’ve accused others of doing when talking about Sex Panther.

I agree fully with your viewpoint that Schenn’s current struggles are not as big of a deal as some make them out to be, but that point above needs to be said for full disclosure.

The only defenceman on the roster that’s younger than Luke is Jake Gardiner. That can’t be forgotten.

5 Defenders have played 70+ games 3 times prior to the age of 22 in the NHL in the past 10 years.

Schenn, Vlasic, Phaneuf, Meszaros, and Doughty.

The Leafs have 2 of those guys on their roster.

Its a shame that Luke couldnt have had an easier introduction to the league through the AHL.

“He’s had four full seasons to learn the game” people sa

These people would be amazingly stupid since he’s only been in the league three and a half seasons.

JVR has basically the exact same stats as Giroux at the same age:

(I posted this in the other thread):

GPG/PPG
JVR……..Giroux
20 0.19/0.45…..N/A
21 0.28/0.53……0.21/0.64
22 0.30/0.59……0.20/0.57

The year after Giroux exploded. Now I am not saying JVR will necessarily explode the way Giroux did, the chances are he won’t. But what I think this does is highlight the logic in trading for a guy like JVR instead of Getzlaf. The idea is that you trade for a guy before he has reached his full potential while he costs less, is either an RFA or locked into a decent deal (won’t cost a fortune in cap hit), and will be in his prime longer. But why does he cost less? Because instead of being the next Giroux, he could be the next Blake Wheeler… (also FWIW I think JVR has more hype today than Giroux did 2 years ago…could be wrong).

I don’t disagree with anything you say, but I think we also have to evaluate things in terms of where he fits on the roster and where he fits in terms of our cap situation. $3.6 million is a lot of money to pay a guy to play 15 minutes a night against weak competition in the hope that he eventually becomes a 2nd pairing guy. That’s on Burke, not Schenn, but I think it has to be part of the equation.

Also worth noting is the fact that Cody Franson has essentially usurped Schenn as our #2 RD not just because Schenn has played poorly, but because Franson has actually played quite well lately. I think Franson is legitimately a 2nd pairing defender on most teams in the league right now. Franson is also considerably cheaper. Yeah, he’s up for a new contract at the end of the season, but based on Burke’s history with RFAs, I think Franson can probably be retained at something like $1.5 – $2 million per season.

In addition to that, the Leafs have Jesse Blacker coming up through the system, and they’re apparently pretty high on him, plus Mike Komisarek naturally plays RD as well. Schenn may turn into a great defender one day, but based on our current roster makeup and our cap situation, if I were Burke I would definitely be trying to find a way to package Schenn with something else to find an upgrade either to our #1 LD or #1C. I’m not saying he should just dump Schenn to the highest bidder, but I do think his trade value is probably considerably higher than his actual value to the team for the next couple of seasons.

JVR out indefinitely with a concussion.

Defenseman are tricky. Not as tricky as goalies, but it’s not always easy to see what you have, especially with “defensive” defencemen. If I were a GM I probably wouldn’t ever draft a dman in the first round unless they showed obvious offensive talent. If you look at the elite d around the league, there aren’t many that were drafted that high.

Anyway, I completely agree we should be patient with schenn. That said, he’s certainly not untouchable like he was two years ago. I’m not sure if JVR is a good swap, but I’d consider it.

Come on. Think about it. You know you want to.

noahlove66 Noah Love
Luke Schenn to remain a Leaf indefinitely. RT @NHLFlyers: #Flyers announced that James van Riemsdyk is out indefinitely with a concussion.

is too high – we can grab Allen from Carolina for less.

It’s tough to play the stats game with Schenn, because yes, he HAS had almost 4 years in the league, but also YES, he started way too young, and so “comparable” players – using any measure – won’t tell you much. So this post picks some more successful players, but I suspect we could go back to previous decades’ young Leaf defenders, and find some development curves that didn’t pan out too well.

What I SEE (when I watch the games), is a guy who cannot seriously be compared, in terms of offensive ability, to the Keith’s and Seabrook’s of the world. So there’s no real sense in even having that discussion. Offensively, Schenn just plain does not have the foot speed, the maneuverability, the shot, the stick-handling ability, or the vision to really see him being a great addition. He should be able to get to 30 points and be solid, but you’ll be damned hard-pressed to remember any of his assists, because most of them will hopefully, just doing the right thing, in his own zone or wherever.

As for how he plays defense, he has just never looked comfortable out there to me. His stance, his skating, the way he fails to even look around at times, his instant decision-making – all of it feels frozen, forced. If I felt like he played NATURALLY, or that the things he was learning had finally been internalized and thus, were coming without trying to think too much, I’d feel better.

Maybe this just means, give him more time, it’ll all sink in, and he’ll become a machine. I hope so. But right now, I look at somebody like Franson, who is goofy as hell in ways, and I just see far more offensive tools, more defensive mobility, better ability with the puck, and he’s beginning to show he can really hit and move attackers around. He’s two years older, but sometimes I think I’d rather see him get the deep-immersion, serious playing time approach Schenn has gotten. Same with Gardiner. Far better offensive chops, incredibly calm out there, and on defense, he seems to react quickly, and seemingly instinctively. He may not become a shutdown guy either, but there are a number of fast, puck controlling defencemen in the league who take away the other team’s offense by owning the puck. Given a year or two, that could be Gardiner.

Shorter: I donno.

his +/- is sort of useless as a read – his rookie year he was going +2 in games where he played 11 minutes…

You can see he puts up points but he’s been amazingly sheltered in Nashville on an extremely deep Defensive team, and he’s being sheltered again on a much less defensively astute Leafs squad… which worries me.

He’s 2 years older than Schenn – you’d like to think by now he could face tougher competition than the “Lost” guy we’ve got in Schenn… but he isn’t facing harder competition.

I try to follow the Leafs system/prospects pretty closely. One guy I’ve never been able to get a good read on is Jesse Blacker. How’s he doing this year? What’s his upside? What’s his TOA supposed be?

Nothing? Jeez. Tough crowd. Kid shows up, 1st full year in PRO hockey, much less the NHL, he’s 21, averages 21 minutes a game, sports an horrific -1 plus/minus, gets 10 points halfway through the season, looks calm and cool, skates like a demon, shows can handle the puck, does this all while weighing about 173 lbs, and only converted a few years ago from forward.

He’s a nothing.

I think it just goes to show that it’s a safer bet to draft elite offensive talent (regardless of position) and sign defensive talent as FAs, since that usually comes with age.

With Schenn, though, his development fits in with the Leafs’ window for contending, so I’d advocate for keeping him.

Side note: Chris Pronger was traded in his age 21 season for Brendan Shanahan in his age 26 season. Shanahan scored 44 goals for Hartford that year.

(Birky put this into the thread he made into the FTB, but I missed it so maybe others did too)

From G & M

We’re just assuming Gardiner is going to exponentially improve every season without risk of stagnation in development in the coming seasons?

I think it’s really easy to right now to say Jake Gardiner is much better than Luke Schenn without much data. Wouldn’t it be more relevant to see how Schenn compares this year with his own rookie season when making an assessment on upside?

Great post. Great comments. Can’t wait to see how the next few days pan out.