The 5th overall pick in the 2009 NHL draft will come into this season looking to improve. The prize of the Mike Richards trade will begin his 3rd season with the Flyers, one that may be career defining. We can dream of a 30-30 year but what are the realistic expectations we can expect from Brayden Schenn this season?

After tallying 18 points with 12 goals in 54 games in 2011-12, Brayden improved to 26 points in 2012-13 but saw his goals reduced to just 8. His points per game have increased from 0.33 in 2011-12 to 0.55 in 2012-13. So, with those stats in mind, what can Flyers fans expect from their young forward in 2013-14?

Let’s begin by comparing Brayden to some other young forwards taken in the top 5 of the NHL draft and what they accomplished in their first 3 seasons in the NHL.

Now, after adding each respective players points per game increase each season and averaging them out, I arrived at a +0.20 PPG up tick in production. The breakdown for each players point per game increase look like this:

Now, using the +0.20 deviation increase we extrapolated from the chart above, lets see what we can expect from Brayden Schenn next year.

Total points for Brayden Schenn including prediction for upcoming season next year Points per game for Brayden Schenn including prediction for upcoming season.

According to my math it seems it would be in the realm of possibility that Brayden Schenn could have a breakout season this year, possibly becoming a 30/30 player.

Now, of course, not only is this just conjecture, but this is probably the best case scenario for the upcoming season. If Brayden shows no improvement this year I wouldn’t expect him to suddenly figure it out his 4th year.

So, will this season give vindication to the Mike Richards trade that brought us Wayne Simmonds and Schenn, or haunt us as the trade that gave Los Angeles ( LOS ANGELES!) a freaking Stanley Cup and us another Playoff exit?

You can email me at bear[DOT]canney[AT]gmail[DOT]com with questions, comments, or to just send me hate mail.

My twitter is @BCanneyBSB.