BlueDream
Registered User
- Aug 30, 2011
- 25,853
- 14,357
I'm on the side of being completely against moving Schenn to RW. He played great there all year and his line basically carried the team. You come into TC now and say "oh yeah sorry about that Brayden, thanks for the hard work but you're back on the wing now." Why?
I also strongly disagree with the notion that he "didn't actually do well" as a center. Yes, he did. I am not going to go looking through any stats but from the eye test, I thought he looked pretty damn solid defensively. His positioning was fine. And I'd be appalled if anyone thought Bozak or Thomas would do a better job there. As for his faceoffs, that "issue" is way overblown. He was at 48%, which isn't awful. As long as you're around 50, it's fine. Especially if you have guys that can make up for it (which we now have). I think people would be surprised to see the faceoff numbers of a lot of other top centers. McDavid 41%, Mackinnon 42%, Turris 49%, Malkin 43%, Kuznetsov 44%, Couture 45%.
Point blank, Thomas is a rookie and shouldn't start above the 3rd line, and Bozak is a worse player than Schenn. So let those 2 fight for the 3C spot, I don't really care what happens there. But moving Schenn to the wing in favor of either one of them would be an asinine slap in the face to him.
Maybe we can revisit this if Thomas just sets the world on fire and looks incredible at center. Until then though, I hate the idea. Every single Cup winner is strong down the middle. A 1-2 punch of O'Reilly and Schenn gives us - BY FAR - the best chance to win out of any possible center combo on this roster. Those are the guys I want going up against Scheifele/Little, Johansen/Turris, Thornton/Couture, Kopitar/Carter, Getzlaf/Henrique, Karlsson/Stastny, Seguin/Spezza, etc etc in the playoffs. No reason to break that up.
(And moving ROR to wing is an even worse idea than Schenn, FWIW. Most elite faceoff man and devensive forward on the roster. He should never leave the middle of the ice, especially in favor of Tyler Bozak and a rookie.)
I also strongly disagree with the notion that he "didn't actually do well" as a center. Yes, he did. I am not going to go looking through any stats but from the eye test, I thought he looked pretty damn solid defensively. His positioning was fine. And I'd be appalled if anyone thought Bozak or Thomas would do a better job there. As for his faceoffs, that "issue" is way overblown. He was at 48%, which isn't awful. As long as you're around 50, it's fine. Especially if you have guys that can make up for it (which we now have). I think people would be surprised to see the faceoff numbers of a lot of other top centers. McDavid 41%, Mackinnon 42%, Turris 49%, Malkin 43%, Kuznetsov 44%, Couture 45%.
Point blank, Thomas is a rookie and shouldn't start above the 3rd line, and Bozak is a worse player than Schenn. So let those 2 fight for the 3C spot, I don't really care what happens there. But moving Schenn to the wing in favor of either one of them would be an asinine slap in the face to him.
Maybe we can revisit this if Thomas just sets the world on fire and looks incredible at center. Until then though, I hate the idea. Every single Cup winner is strong down the middle. A 1-2 punch of O'Reilly and Schenn gives us - BY FAR - the best chance to win out of any possible center combo on this roster. Those are the guys I want going up against Scheifele/Little, Johansen/Turris, Thornton/Couture, Kopitar/Carter, Getzlaf/Henrique, Karlsson/Stastny, Seguin/Spezza, etc etc in the playoffs. No reason to break that up.
(And moving ROR to wing is an even worse idea than Schenn, FWIW. Most elite faceoff man and devensive forward on the roster. He should never leave the middle of the ice, especially in favor of Tyler Bozak and a rookie.)