Luke Schenn Immediately Having Big Impact on Jets’ Blue Line After Trade Deadline

While by no means an offensive juggernaut with five points this season, Schenn seems a great addition for what the Jets are hoping will be a long playoff run. The most-successful playoff teams combine high-end skill with relentless physicality — just ask the reigning Stanley Cup champion Florida Panthers.

Having won two Cups with the Tampa Bay Lightning, Schenn should be able to bring a “been-there-done-that” mentality to performing on the biggest stage and instil lessons in his new teammates on how to handle the pressure. His poise is something that will benefit a Jets club that has no other Stanley Cup winners on it and has made first-round exits in consecutive postseasons.

Schenn’s Arrival Has Caused Addition By Subtraction

Schenn’s biggest contribution to his new team might be who he’s forced out of the lineup.

That’s Logan Stanley, the gaffe-prone 26-year-old the organization just can’t seem to quit. The justification for playing Stanley has been that he is big, hard, heavy, and developing (even though 26 isn’t “development” age and he doesn’t really play hard or heavy for his size.) Those presumed attributes have absolved him from all defensive sins for years.

Head coach Scott Arniel had Colin Miller, Haydn Fleury, and Ville Heinola at his disposal before Schenn arrived but he clearly never viewed any of them as a better option, considering Stanley had never been a healthy scratch this season prior to Schenn’s debut and the others have been scratched dozens of times each.

Generally, a team doesn’t acquire someone at the deadline just to park them in the press box (although former head coach Rick Bowness largely did that to Miller last season.) Because Schenn and Stanley are both not very quick, Arniel can’t really deploy both, and especially can’t pair them together.

For Schenn’s debut against the Rangers, Arniel put him on the third paring with the much-quicker Fleury to good results. Then, when Neal Pionk was shut down week to week with a lower-body injury Friday, Arniel bumped Schenn up to the second pairing with Dylan Samberg and put Miller — not Stanley — on the third pairing with Fleury against the Stars (Samberg jokingly referred to them as the “Bruise Brothers” prior to that game due to their willingness to block shots.)

Arniel clearly liked what he saw in the pairings against the Stars, keeping them for the game against the Kraken.

The Jets, gunning for their first Presidents’ Trophy and to finish tops in the Western Division so they can play the second Western wild-card team in the first round, are 3-0-0 since Schenn’s arrival and now sit 11 points up on the second-place Stars with a 47-17-4 record. Removing Stanley — whose lack of overall defensive awareness in key moments, turnovers, and poor decision-making has hurt the Jets too often and for too long — is a perfect example of addition by subtraction.

Considering what we’ve seen, it sure looks like Josh Morrissey/Dylan DeMelo, Samberg/Neal Pionk, and Schenn/Fleury are the optimal playoff pairings (or Schenn/Samberg and Fleury/Miller if Pionk isn’t ready.)