JVR has been great. But forwards hit their prime younger and he is playing with Phil Kessel.
Philly has a bad defence and Schenn has looked close to putting it together at times. He's also looked terrible at times. If he gets a bit of footspeed and cuts out some of the dumb things he occasionally does that exposes his lack of footspeed he can be a very effective top 4 defenceman still.
Right now Toronto won that trade but it remains to be seen what we will say 10 years from now. Most would have said Toronto lost the Kessel trade after all.
People tend to forget that the Leafs didn't trade for Pronger back in 2006, simply because JFJ didn't want to give up Alex Steen, citing him as "future captain material". That would have been a better return than Stempniak+Mayers any day of the week.
Cite the Beauchemin trade trade for example... The first year we made that trade everyone thought we fleeced the ducks getting a blue chip prospect and a talented winger like lupul was just icing on the cake (Remember he was still injured and wasn't likely to put up numbers like he did before). Now with Beauchemin looking like a norris caliber defenceman, it looks as if the trade is more even nowadays given gardiner's recent struggles and lupul's inconsistencies.
Point is, winners and losers of trades are constantly changing, almost what seems like a monthly basis at times. Not saying the Schenn will eventually come to terms with who he is as a player in regards to his potential making us look like idiots for trading him, but as of now JVR is the better player and things definitely look good on our side of the deal.
When Schenn got traded my Mom was so upset, she run to her bedroom which is our garage and pored gasoline on herself. Luckily I was able to lock the doors untill she fell asleep.