Larry Brooks is providing player evaluations daily in the NY Post, an exercise that began the past Monday. The order is by last name, and while he is not giving a grade, he is giving a sort of high-level assessment. Since it's my hope that we will have hockey, I thought it might be interesting to take one or a few aspects of his daily column along with his closure - the latter in italics - and provide my view, then receive yours in the comments. I will try and do this daily, and have covered Lias Andersson, Pavel Buchnevich, Filip Chytil, Tony DeAngelo, Jesper Fast, Adam Fox and Alexandar Georgiev. Today it's Brett Howden.
So after two years, how much do we really know about what to expect from Brett Howden, other than the fact that the 22-year-old is always going to put in the work to improve and is always going to work on whatever assignment he’s given by the coaching staff?
Beyond that, though: Is Howden a center, where he had played throughout his entire career until David Quinn moved him to the wing last December?
Critically, does Howden have it in him to be productive enough to merit top-nine minutes, or is he going to settle into a fourth-line role that hardly seems befitting of the young, developing first-rounder, especially playing for a coach who has generally viewed the fourth line as a repository for mismatched players?
It’s interesting. Had the Rangers been either a little bit better or a little bit worse last season, and this applies pretty much from the get-go, then Howden probably would have been in the AHL because that’s where he would have had the opportunity to sprout his wings in a top-six role.
The Blueshirts acquired No. 21, selected 27th overall by Tampa Bay in 2016, as part of the 2018 deadline package in exchange for Ryan McDonagh and JT Miller. When he arrived, he surpassed his notices. He was a man among adolescents throughout both prospect camp and the prospect tournament in Traverse City. He made the Rangers at age 20. He earned his spot. And he has kept it, maybe to his own — and ultimately, the organization’s — detriment.
Advanced stats, at least the ones that are publicly available, paint Howden as one of the very worst players in the NHL. This season’s 40.4 Corsi ranked dead last among the 230 forwards with at least 725 minutes at five-on-five, and his two-year Corsi of 41.36 also ranked last among the 235 forwards with at least 1,500 minutes of full-strength hockey. The stat may not be dispositive, but being last among 230 or 235 can’t be good. There is xGF and GAR, and Howden does not grade well in the more esoteric numbers, either.
Howden opened the season in the middle, generally playing with Kakko on one side and/or Brendan Lemieux on the other. He bounced to the fourth line before Quinn moved him to the wing pretty much for good just before Christmas. A couple of games later, the coach created the Howden-Chytil-Kakko third unit that kind of made sense given the locked-in nature of the top six and the bargain-bin feel of the fourth line.
Except the trio graded as one of the worst in the NHL, if not the worst, combining for a 41.10 shot share and an xGF of 39.01 percent while on the ice for two goals for and 10 against in 133:31. The probability is we won’t see very much of that combination again.
The question is, where will we see Howden? On the wing? In the middle? In New York? Or Hartford?
We discussed Howden several times this season. In my view, he is living off his strong start to his Rangers' career. Since then, though, I think his game has fallen off substantially.
Lias Andersson drew much of the ire from the fanbase. But Howden did little to me to stand out this season or last two-thirds or half of last year. As Brooks said, is he a center or a wing? From what we have seen, Howden appeared to play better at wing, but the jury is still out as to his future position.
Howden should have been back in the AHL playing top-six minutes in all situations. If New York does import additional talent, then I could see Howden landing in the minors, at least during some part of the season. In addition, after two years in the NHL, as we have seen, Howden has yet to really stand out and show he belongs.
At the time of the trade, I wanted several other players well in advance of Howden. Brayden Point and Anthony Cirelli were those two, each of whom were pipe dreams, though Cirelli might have been option, especially if the Rangers didn't obtain Libor Hajek as part of the bigger deal. Howden made a good first impression, which bought him some bandwidth and time, but as said above, has done little if anything to really distinguish himself since.
Next season is a big one for Howden, whose ELC expires after the season. With no arb rights, another so-so campaign, especially one where he ends up in the minors, will mean a minimal raise for 2021-22. In addition, he likely will be exposed in the expansion draft, a far cry from where he thought he would be after coming to New York.
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