Bellemare Providing a French Connection for Schenn and Simmonds

Brayden Schenn and Wayne Simmonds were acquired from the Los Angeles King in the same trade, and have seemed to almost always be on the same line since. They don’t have outstanding numbers as just a pair, but looking deeper into the numbers shows some surprising results. Schenn and Simmonds had a corsi for percentage of under 50 (48%) when they were together last year overall. However, would their 3rd line mate have a significant impact on their play?

When Schenn and Simmonds were on the ice with Vincent Lecavalier, they struggled. Unfortunately this was one of the most common combinations (369 minutes on ice) last season. Of the other current Flyers, Schenn and Simmonds played 109 minutes with Raffl, and just 14 and 12 minutes with Voracek and Read respectively.

The chart above shows the corsi for percentage at 5v5 for the line combinations that included Schenn and Simmonds during the 2013-2014 season. They struggled with and were weighed down by Lecavalier. When they were put with players with some more speed and skill, the results were similar to what we are seeing now with a speedy Bellemare centering Schenn and Simmonds.

Now looking at the individual numbers for this year, Wayne Simmonds has continued to be a puck possession wizard with nearly 60% CF. Those numbers only improve when he is paired up with Schenn and Bellemare, with both of the CF% being over 60. The injury early in the year to Vincent Lecavalier might have been a good thing for the team, as Lecavalier was one of the few players that Simmonds’ numbers were brought down by.

The same is true with Brayden Schenn. His corsi for percentage is barely over 50% alone, but the combination of him and Bellemare or Simmonds puts his CF% over 60%. Again with Schenn the numbers with Lecavalier are similar to Simmonds with Lecavalier. The Lecavalier signing looked like a great thing at the time, but the day of the signing might end up being the high point for Lecavalier’s tenure in Philadelphia.

Since being removed from the 4th line, Bellemare has thrived on the second line. His overall CF% hasn’t quite reached the halfway mark, but his numbers with Schenn and Simmonds are once again over 60% as expected. When he was playing with Rinaldo and Akeson his puck possession numbers were either just at 40% (with Rinaldo) or barely above 35% (with Akeson).

Overall it seems like Bellemare is just what Schenn and Simmonds have needed. He is one of the fastest skaters on the team and has plenty of skill. He is new to the NHL but definitely isn’t new to the sport after putting up some good numbers in Europe before coming to the NHL this year.

Bellemare even said himself that he was shocked to make the team, and shocked to score his first goal on Wednesday against the Penguins, but you shouldn’t be shocked with the type of numbers and eventual results that are going to be put up by this Schenn-Bellemare-Simmonds line.

*All stats are up to October 25th and do not include the game against Detroit. 

Ryan Gilbert is a contributing writer for Flyerdelphia. Follow him on Twitter @RiskyBryzness.