Dylan Strome scored his fourth goal of the season, his first as a member of the Chicago Blackhawks in his debut. He would add an assist in an 8-3 losing effort to the Vegas Golden Knights, skating with familiar Erie Otters teammate Alex DeBrincat and the magician Patrick Kane. An attempt to rejuvenate a career sure seems bound for success when hooking up with Kane, significantly increasing the possibility.
Another piece in the Arizona/Chicago trade that saw Strome and Brendan Perlini swapped for Nick Schmaltz. Perlini skated with Alexandre Fortin and Marcus Kruger. Not exactly the same caliber linemates. The former Coyotes first rounder in 2014 (12th overall) skated 24 seconds on the power play in his first game in Chicago silks. With prime minutes in Arizona, he led the Yotes at the time of the trade in points per 60, earning a point on four of the five goals scored while on the ice.
Nick Schmaltz fired two shots in a pointless 16:23 Coyotes debut at 5v5, one of them from a high danger scoring area. He played 18:38 overall on a line with Alex Galchenyuk and Clayton Keller.
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A one-game sample immediately after the trade doesn’t accurately portray the impact of each player in their respective new surroundings. This theme is also prevalent on the underlying numbers, as we shall see.
A ‘change of scenery’ is an oft-used narrative, the romanticism of the concept of a player lighting it up in another organization with a fresh sheet and ability to hit potential. Sometimes it works, but most of the time there are usually underlying reasons players are moved away before peak development.
Just like in this situation, teams realize there’s a point where they have to cut ties and let prized prospects go. The Yotes have a practical example in bringing in the less favoured Galchenyuk from Montreal that sent Max Domi the other way, based on similar philosophy of rejuvenation elsewhere.
On Monday, the Arizona Coyotes and Chicago Blackhawks swapped once prized prospects. The Coyotes capitalized on a player that expeditiously fell out of favour in Chicago. It’s an odd exchange considering how highly he was previously touted by Chicago management. His pace at 5v5 in 2018-19 has dropped significantly, despite playing most minutes with Patrick Kane – until recently. With only one goal and 24 shots on goal, his 4.17% shooting percentage is considerably lower than the 21.25% he fired last season – scoring 17 goals and perhaps creating undesirable expectations.
Chicago has lamentably continued a trend of trading away their first round picks, whether it was for a Stanley Cup run or simply cutting ties, there’s a destructive pattern here that needs to be halted and reversed immediately. The current state of the recent Stanley Cup Contender is tied to two monster contracts for Patrick Kane and Jonathan Toews, and the organization does done fairly well moving pieces to make it fit under the cap. Now, with the contention further behind them, they have to reassess just where the franchise is and set course a plan with a realistic assessment of the current roster. Strome and Perlini will add some skilled components, even with limitations.
Until recently, Nick Schmaltz would not have been one of those players in which the organization deemed worthy of trading away. Chicago Blackhawks General Manager Stan Bowman had indicated that Schmaltz was part of an untouchable group of players the team would like to retain as core members.
In Arizona, Dylan Strome was supposed to become a cornerstone piece. The 3rd overall selection in the 2015 NHL entry draft, selected just behind Connor McDavid and Jack Eichel, and just before Mitch Marner. In fact, that 2015 draft class is deep and impactful thus far .. except for Strome.
Strome started his NHL career with a seven-game audition earning one assist before spending the majority of the 2017-18 season lighting up the AHL (50-22-31-53). The scoring hasn’t translated to the NHL level, in particular this season with only two assists in 5v5 play, despite generating similar individual shot attempts as per his 21 games in 2017-18. The biggest difference is half of the high danger opportunities – a key item that can’t be overlooked. Some of the lack of production can’t be laid directly at Strome’s feet, and can be attributed to the pop gun offense offered by the current year’s team. They’ve scored a league low goals at 5v5.
These are some of the situations where analytics is at a disadvantage. Twenty games season over season isn’t enough of a sample size to make an accurate predictive assessments of Strome, however the Blackhawks believe in the successful reclamation project, especially if they conserve the partnership with Kane.
The Coyotes coaching staff puts lines through a blender and neither player had been able to find linemate stability. Perlini has skated alongside Derek Stepan and Christian Fischer the most, but even that is a small sample overall. Strome has had just as much instability, and was understandably crippled to produce much offensively when anchored with most often linemates of Nick Cousins and Lawson Crouse.
Strome can find some linemate stability up higher in the roster, while Perlini may not find similar linemates, but can be integrated into a secondary powerplay unit to take advantage of his shooting arsenal.
Nick Schmaltz will enter the linemate blender in Arizona, unlike the established forward pairings in Chicago. I’d expect this to have some effect overall, even if he finds success and a purposeful slot in the lineup.
