Luke Schenn: How Over-Rated Is He?

Add another Leafs’ fan to the growing network of the Bleacher Report!  

I registered a while back in the hopes of putting up an article, but whenever I found the time, I asked myself, “Does anyone really care to read another attempt to write flimsy sports journalism written by bitter nostalgic has-beens?” 

So I just left it.  

However, I finally have my reading week, so I allocated some time to go through the site a little more.

It did not take me very long to realize that Damien Cox, in fact, does not write for this site, so here I am—writing an attempt to add some more substance to the growing network of this website’s Leafs’ contingent.

Over the last several months, I’ve been coming across a number of Leafs’ fans who have been overtly critical of the Leafs’ drafting a shut-down defender in Luke Schenn, rather than opting to draft a potential game-breaking in Nikita Filatov.  Here are some of the issues the naysayers have made:

Issue No. 1: "I thought Luke Schenn was supposed to be mean! He's been very tame, but plays a smart defensive game".

Issue No. 2: "There's no way in hell that Schenn will be the next Scott Stevens. He doesn't have the offensive ability".

Issue No. 3: "He was more physically mature than his age group—which factored in how dominant he was in juniors. Now his game's being exposed".

Issue #1: "I thought Luke Schenn was supposed to be mean! He's been very tame, but plays a smart defensive game".

Luke Schenn was considered to be one of the meaner and nastier players in the WHL. He was also extremely violent, also to the point of killing players with a look during the 2008 WJCs and U18s—his strengths were that he would scare players into thinking twice about going into the corners with him. 

Until recently, he has been very tame and almost docile.  The reason being is that he's a rookie. A rookie player very rarely goes out to antagonize the competition—they show respect for those who have tenure in the NHL, rarely going out to hurt a player.

A good example (depending on how you look at it), is Jack Johnson. On his second NHL shift, he tried to take Chris Pronger's head off. Pronger destroyed him with a huge hit and for the rest of the season, Mr. Johnson showed respect and humility towards his peers. Today, he displays a nasty attitude as he has shown that he belongs in the NHL.

Quote directly from McKeen's Hockey magazine on Johnson:  "... shows a very respectful attitude towards his peers as he played a safe game in his NHL indoctrination" 

You're currently logged into Facebook

Do you want to share your Bleacher Report activity on Facebook?