Rugged Luke Schenn might have arrived at the right time for playoff-bound Jets
If you roll your eyes at the value placed on being hard to play against, watching Luke Schenn in Tuesday’s 3-1 Jets win over the Rangers would change your mind. Jacob Stoller tells us why.
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WINNIPEG — A lot of fans shrugged their shoulders when Luke Schenn arrived.
It was hardly a sexy addition, especially compared to what Dallas and Colorado did at the deadline. The 35-year-old wasn’t the top pairing right-handed defenceman many hoped GM Kevin Cheveldayoff would land. And, at first glance, a second- and fourth-round pick seemed a bit rich for a third-pairing defenceman.
But those inside the Winnipeg Jets dressing room saw it differently.
Having gone toe-to-toe with him over his last two years in Nashville, adding Schenn was viewed as nothing short of a home run.
“Yeah, it’s a lot more fun to play with him than against him,” Jets forward Cole Perfetti said.
To some, the “hard to play against” depiction is just another hockey buzzword — similar to “pucks in deep” or “full 60 minutes.” But if you roll your eyes at the value placed on being hard to play against, look no further than Exhibit A: Tuesday’s 3-1 win over the New York Rangers.
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Schenn finished the tight-checking game with five hits, five blocked shots and one takeaway in 16:01 of ice time. The six-foot-two defenceman lived up to his reputation of protecting the guts of the ice — looking like a linebacker in a sled drill as he pushed Matt Rempe out of the crease after a whistle late in the second period. He earned ovations from the home crowd after his thunderous hit on Arthur Kaliyev in the second period and his block on Carson Soucy’s point shot late in the third period.
“That’s sort of my identity, and it always has been,” Schenn said. “If I’m not doing that, then I’m not playing to the best of my abilities.”
Josh Morrissey called Schenn the “human eraser” when awarding the player of the game jacket to him post-game.
“In the third period there, he rocked a couple guys and in the last 10 minutes, he had three or four blocks, or whatever it was,” Perfetti said. “He’s almost playing goalie, like he took up so much space and you can’t get it past him.”
Come playoff time, you need those types of players.
Dating back to last year’s first-round series against Colorado — where there was more traffic in front of Connor Hellebuyck than Route 90 during rush hour — the Jets have been in dire need of someone like Schenn.
“There’s a lot of guys that go the long way to get to the net when he’s out there,” Jets coach Scott Arniel said.
And while Schenn might be on the back nine of his career, the Jets’ well-structured, defence-first system is a perfect environment to get the most out of the high-IQ rearguard.
“If it’s a free-wheeling game, that’s what puts me in one a little bit,” Schenn said. “The more details, the more structure, the better.”
You can’t overlook his intangibles, either.
Schenn isn’t just well-travelled throughout his 1,058-game career — having played for 10 different teams — he’s also shown an ability to quickly step into a leadership role when joining a team midseason.
Look no further than his pit stop with the Leafs in 2022-23.
At the time, Toronto hadn’t advanced past the first round since 2003-04. The Maple Leafs were coming off six consecutive first-round exits. Pressure was mounting. When Schenn found out that his teammates would often eat at the team hotel on the road during the playoffs, he spearheaded an initiative to break that trend. He organized team dinners, booking private rooms, hand-picking menus and carefully cultivating an atmosphere that could help take the edge off his highly anxious group.
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“(At the team dinners,) we have it set up where we have another (NHL playoff) game on TV in the background, and guys are just enjoying each other’s company for two to three hours rather than being in a hotel and basically consciously thinking about the task at hand the next day,” Schenn told the Toronto Star at the time. “I think that’s important. But it’s also important to build relationships with guys.”
The Leafs advanced to the second round that year.
Coming off consecutive first-round exits and years of disappointment since the 2017-18 conference finals run, Winnipeg is in a similar boat to that Toronto team. It needs to get the monkey off its back. And for Schenn, there’s urgency too.
“I really expect an exuberance from him,” Cheveldayoff told reporters after the deadline. “Because when you get a little longer in the career, you know that you don’t have as many of those years left. So I think that urgency, that desire, he’ll be able to talk to the guys and say, ‘You know what, guys, buckle down, because it’s damn well worth it.’”
Schenn is exactly the type of role player the Jets need to break through.
