[GranteedEV]

Originally Posted by Enoch Root

Is there a single person on the planet (Schlemko's mom excluded) who - while actually WATCHING the games - thought: hey, that Schlemko is totally driving the play!?

Actually, yes. There were multiple instances where he made strong plays to either

A) Get the puck in the defensive zone with good play along the walls, and then use his great stickhandling to get the puck up the ice.

B) Keep the puck in the offensive zone at the blueline and sustain possession simply by having some mobility and good instinct.

What was also clear from watching Schlemko is that he can't shoot the puck well enough to be a legitimate top 4 offensive Dman, but as a defensive Dman he's exactly what you want.

Schlemko's possession was inflated by

1) Easy zone starts for the Schlemko/Diaz pairing
2) TJ Brodie being God-tier.

But considering certain other players got similar deployment and came out of it not-so-hot, calling Schlemko a possession driver is very accurate. Our own GM also said multiple times he thinks Schlemko can be a middle pairing Dman, which lends credence to that he's a lot more than a "decent #6". Pretty much every time Engelland was taken off of Brodie's pairing and replaced with Schlemko, the pairing went from being a possession anchor to a possession monster regardless of where they were starting out.

But if your stats are telling you that he drove possession better than almost anyone else on the team well...

I can't imagine anyone's one's saying he drove play better than Giordano or Brodie among Dmen, those two are on a completely different level and for the most part the advanced stats support that.

But it's absolutely safe to say that Schlemko drove play positively VS Wideman, Russell, and Engelland. The eye test confirms that.

There's a reason Schlemko's arrival co-incided with an improvement in the performance of our 4th line with guys like Ferland, Stajan, Bollig, finishing the season possessing the puck whereas most of the season they would just be satisfied with just finishing a shift without giving up a goal.

Which one seems the more prudent?

That maybe your perception of reality is biased due to the fact that we got Schlemko off waivers rather than getting Schlemko off a 3x3 offseason contract. The idea of a waiver wire pickup possibly being much better at his position than a big offseason signing just can't possibly be true, even when every metric says it is.

That's not to take away from what Wideman and Russell do. They might struggle with possession but they're good at making plays that ignore 5vs5possession (scoring on the rush, blocking shots, passing on the rush, scoring on the power play), thinks that Schlemko can't do as well. But when Schlemko's on the ice good things happen almost every shift. He's physical in the Dzone, he gets the puck through the neutral zone, and he keeps the puck in the offensive zone even if he doesn't do a whole lot with it there other than aim for goalies' chestpads.