One of the issues the Flyers sought to correct last off-season was the overload of natural centers in the lineup. Even this past season, the Flyers ended up having to play a couple of forwards out of their preferred position in the middle.
Beyond top-line center Claude Giroux, it will be interesting to see who ends up playing where -- and what his role will be -- come next season. In particular, I look forward to seeing whether Brayden Schenn plays on the second or third line, and whether his position will be center or left wing.
Danny Briere is still entrenched as the team's second line center. Once again, the NHL's leading post-lockout playoff goal scorer had a big offensive postseason. But there is an element of risk involved. Briere has exploitable defensive vulnerabilities when he's matched against bigger, stronger centers. Of course, when Briere is racking up clutch goals in big games, no one is concerned about matchups at the other end of the ice.
Briere has been tried at right wing occasionally over the years. He never complains about the assignment but has never been as effective in that spot. Theoretically, it's a less demanding defensive position, but Danny also seems to generate less offense that way as well. This past year, Briere had a revolving door of linemates (after playing for a full season plus with Scott Hartnell and Ville Leino, starting with the 2010 playoffs).
A natural center, Schenn played about 55 percent of his season on left wing (primarily on the Briere line) and the rest in the middle. I am not sure where I liked him better, as he had both effective and ineffective stretches at both spots during his rookie year.
Schenn is not yet as polished defensively as Sean Couturier nor as naturally gifted offensively as the veteran Briere. Instead, Schenn has a nice combination of a variety of skills, and he is the most physical player of the trio.
When he's on his game, Schenn is a tenacious forechecker with a nose for the net. That suggests left wing may be his calling in the NHL. However, I thought the most complete games Schenn played this season came in games where he was in the middle.
For all the deserved talk about Couturier's stellar play in the postseason, I thought Schenn started and finished the playoffs playing his best hockey of the entire season. He was a force in the first two games of the Pittsburgh series, right up until Arron Asham's cross-check and sucker punch to the back of his head. Schenn went through an ineffective stretch thereafter, but I thought he was one of the Flyers' better forwards in Games 3 and 5 of the New Jersey series.
Come next season, I think Schenn will still have some growing pains as an NHL player. I anticipate some offensive streakiness, as Schenn needs to have his physical A game going to be an offensive threat. As a rookie, there were stretches of games at a time where he was not noticeable in the forechecking/physical department, and the scoring chances didn't come, either. It will likely take another couple seasons to find that top level consistently.
Schenn has the potential to evolve into a solid two-way forward, but the defensive end of his game is still evolving. Watch Couturier and you will see that the player is almost always in the right position, rarely throws pucks away on low-percentage passes. When Couturier does shoot the puck (and he needs to do it a little more when he has the opportunity), he can score from a variety of angles.
With Schenn, the simpler and more direct his game, the better he is. In terms of his NHL game, he was more of a typical rookie forward than Couturier. Schenn at times would make plays that work for top players at the junior level but rarely succeed at the NHL level. Instead of scoring chances and goals, they'd result in turnovers or taking himself from a scoring area into a lower-percentage area. In the defensive end, Schenn was not infallible but was at least adequate.
Considering that Schenn lost the first three months of the regular season to injuries and struggled to find a rhythm -- he did not record his first NHL point until he scored a goal in the Winter Classic on Jan. 2 -- he had an encouraging rookie season. Schenn ended up scoring a dozen goals (one more than Mike Richards tallied in his NHL rookie season).
This past season, Schenn and James van Riemsdyk were rarely healthy enough to play at the same time. That is one one of the factors, along with the logjam in the middle, that led to Schenn seeing a lot of time at wing.
If Jaromir Jagr does not return to Philadelphia, it seems likely that Jakub Voracek will get the first crack at playing on right wing of the Giroux line. However, I could also see a scenario where Schenn ends up playing on the right side of the top line. Alternatively, Briere could end up moving to a wing, and the top three centers would be Giroux, Schenn and Couturier.
Of course, the Flyers could also end up trading from among their top six or seven forwards to seek additional blueline depth. It's going to a fascinating summer in that regard.
Coming tomorrow: A look at Matt Read.
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