What was wrong with Mathieu Schneider career?

[DRW895]

Or nothing wrong and he never was top/star defenceman?

 

[sprongshowhky]

Looking at the numbers he's top in his draft class for points by a defenceman (7th most points overall) despite being picked in the third round. I'd say he did pretty well!

 

[Bear of Bad News]

Why is the assumption that something must be wrong? He had a solid career.

 

[BraveCanadian]

Guy played over 1000 games.. I guess he was doing something right?

 

[Staniowski]

Schneider looked like he was a real natural athlete, and the first thing you would notice about him was his skating, he was very mobile on the ice. So, I think he often looked like he had the potential to be a big star. But he never quite got there. But it was his skating, natural athleticism, and his shooting that enabled him to play until he was 40.

When he came up on the Habs, I think there were hopes that he'd be another Chelios. They had obvious similarities: they could both skate and shoot, they both played a style that looked creative and free, and they both played with aggressiveness, and could be dirty and take dumb penalties.

 

[sr edler]

I think it was probably his defence that was the issue. Not that he was necessarily terrible defensively just that it came with some flaws if relied on too heavily.

 

[JianYang]

Nothing wrong with schneider.

He was a good offensive dman for a very long time. He skated well, and had a big shot to go with it.

I'd say he was more under the radar given the attributes he brought to each club he played for.

Guy played over 1000 games.. I guess he was doing something right?

Yeah, over 1,400 games under his belt to be precise.

 

[Hockey Outsider]

My first impression - there was nothing "wrong" with Schneider at all. He was a 3rd round draft pick and he ended up playing nearly 1,300 games. He scored nearly 750 points. He peaked at 6th and 7th in Norris voting in back to back years. By any reasonable standard, Schneider exceeded expectations. (Nor did he show any signs, early in his career, that maybe he was underrated at the time of the draft).

My second impression was the same as @sr edler. If I had to criticize Schneider for something, it would be his defensive play. My gut instinct is he was adequate defensively, nothing more than that. (And to highlight specific strengths - he had great endurance, was a good skater, and he had a very good slapshot).

Even those comments (about his defensive play) might be harsh. He logged a lot of minutes on some very good teams (he averaged 24+ minutes per game in his three full years in Detroit - and those teams finished 1st, 1st and 2nd in regular season, so it's not like he was Alexei Zhitnik, racking up huge minutes on bad teams). He regularly played on the PK (typically the second unit) throughout his entire career. overpass's spreadsheet shows that, at ES, Schneider's teams were consistently a fair bit better when he was on the ice (his R-ON/OFF results are very similar to Sergei Zubov's).

I automatically assumed that Schneider wasn't great defensively because some of his most high-profile years were next to Nicklas Lidstrom (so obviously he looked worse defensively) and since he was so much more productive on the powerplay, he conjures up the imagine of a PP specialist. We can debate whether he was "adequate" vs "solid" defensively, but either way, nothing was wrong with his career.

 

[Matty Sundin]

He never really established himself with a team. He played for 10 different teams so he gets kinda forgotten.

 

[JianYang]

He never really established himself with a team. He played for 10 different teams so he gets kinda forgotten.

Half of those teams were in the last 5 years of his career. He played into his 40s, and it's not unusual for players at that stage of their career to bounce around. By the end, he was pretty much a pp specialist. He was considerably slower at this point but he could still provide a big shot.

 

[sr edler]

I think you guys are being too literal again and are missing the undertone of the thread title.

The way the thread title reads to me is "what did he miss to be a HHOF type of player" or "why didn't he make the HHOF", or something along those lines.

 

[Moose Head]

I think you guys are being too literal again and are missing the undertone of the thread title.

The way the thread title reads to me is "what did he miss to be a HHOF type of player" or "why didn't he make the HHOF", or something along those lines.

Always got the sense he was a bit of a me-first type of guy who wasn’t one of his teams more popular players, hence why he always seemed expendable. I’m pretty sure that’s why the Habs traded him and that rep sort of stuck with him. I don’t think any of his teams regretted trading him away.

 

[Hobnobs]

Always got the sense he was a bit of a me-first type of guy who wasn’t one of his teams more popular players, hence why he always seemed expendable. I’m pretty sure that’s why the Habs traded him and that rep sort of stuck with him. I don’t think any of his teams regretted trading him away.

Yup. This is the jist of it from a red wings perspective as well. With his mentality and the addition of being an offensive d-man who takes dumb penalties and do minor league level mistakes defensively and he is the perfect player to hate.

I'm pretty sure he was despised on the isles (together with Muller and Clark) as well.

 

[MadLuke]

First thought was, did he not had a great career ?

Second thought, in my video game as a kid nhl 98 or 99, Scheinder was often in talk for the Norris at the end of year leading Ds in points from a fuzzy long memories, so maybe it does have some to it.

Cup winner traded in a bit of obscurity the trade often refered as turgeon-muller while Desjardin was a bit of a folk hero for the same cup, maybe because Muller was at the end and was seen as just a pure big win in my market.

Injury missing game during the 1993 cup, non playoff teams from a lot of his prime, arrive with Red wings a year too late and leave too early to win cups with them, a bit of unlucky timings.

Third round under 6 feet pick that play over 1200 games seem hard to critics to me, that a top 1% player career.

 

[yianik]

Schneider was a really good D man, especially offensively but fine defensively.

Nothing wrong , keep moving along folks, nothing to see here.

 

[Michael Farkas]

I didn't care for him defensively certainly...I'd like to go back and look, as I know more now than I did yesterday...but I don't think he was good defensively, especially early on...

I don't get what the thread is asking though...

 

[JianYang]

Always got the sense he was a bit of a me-first type of guy who wasn’t one of his teams more popular players, hence why he always seemed expendable. I’m pretty sure that’s why the Habs traded him and that rep sort of stuck with him. I don’t think any of his teams regretted trading him away.

In Montreal, there was rampant speculation that schneider's ousting was related to off ice matters, and that he had a conflict with Roy. I won't get into the alleged details but your fate is pretty much decided when you're butting heads with Roy.

Regardless, it's not like he was traded for peanuts. He was actually involved in a big deal where muller and schneider were exchanged for turgeon and malakhov.

 

[ORHawksFan]

In Montreal, there was rampant speculation that schneider's ousting was related to off ice matters, and that he had a conflict with Roy. I won't get into the alleged details but your fate is pretty much decided when you're butting heads with Roy.

I had also heard about conflict with Roy but never knew what it was about, any details?

 

[JianYang]

I had also heard about conflict with Roy but never knew what it was about, any details?

Honestly, the speculation is on a very personal level and I don't want add fuel to that speculation. I feel like I cross a certain line if I do.

 

[Michael Farkas]

Schneider went through a lot in a very short period of time...he was basically hand picked to be the heir apparent to Chris Chelios, they were way off in contract discussions, he had family stuff going on both sides of the house - so to speak, he went AWOL at one point for a short period of time, and ended up getting labeled a "cancer" in the locker room...which was bandied about by the media, shouted by fans, and what not to the point that the team had to address it specifically...

Whether he had an issue with Roy or whether that was concocted out of all the other stuff surrounding his late tenure in Montreal, I don't have a sense of...

I don't want to speak for him or the situation, but it just felt like a guy that probably could have benefited a lot from mental health being put a bit more in the forefront...if you were sad in the 90's, your choices were to drink or to rub some dirt on it basically...

 

[Marc the Habs Fan]

It's well known that Roy and Schneider had an actual fight in the Habs locker room during the intermission of a game in 1995, whether it's related to the other stuff that is rumored, who knows.

 

[The Pale King]

Always got the sense he was a bit of a me-first type of guy who wasn’t one of his teams more popular players, hence why he always seemed expendable. I’m pretty sure that’s why the Habs traded him and that rep sort of stuck with him. I don’t think any of his teams regretted trading him away.

I can only comment on this for the Kings, but bolded the is only true for Los Angeles because they had a similar younger defenseman in Lubomir Visnovsky in the system already, and they got a very solid return, at least on paper, for what was at the time a 33 year-old defenseman.

The Kings got a 1st round pick, 2nd round pick, Sean Avery as well as Maxim Kuznetsov, a former 1st rounder for him when they moved him to Detroit at the deadline in 2003, which is a very reasonable return for a guy at that stage in his career. And ya, the first rounder they used on Jeff Tambellini, which is a horrible miss in a loaded 03 draft class, and the 2nd rounder also whiffed. But that's not Schneider's fault obviously.

LA had three first round picks that year and took Brown at 13, Brian Boyle at 26 and then Tambellini immediately after at 27. Corey Perry got taken at 28... the mind reels at having prime Brown and Perry on the same team but alas...

So none of those players amounted to much of anything for LA, but that's more a failing of their scouting department than a knock on the return Dave Taylor got for Schneider.

I really liked Schneider with Los Angeles. He filled a big void in the post-Blake years and he played a big role in the Kings knocking off the Red Wings in 2001. And just as far as immediate impact of losing Schneider, the 2002-03 Kings went 5-10-2-3 after moving Schneider the deadline, a 37.5% points percentage vs. 49.2% in the 65 games before. Trading Bryan Smolinski didn't help with that either though.

Steve Duschene is a similar contemporary player but I definitely prefer Schneider to him.

 

[JianYang]

Schneider went through a lot in a very short period of time...he was basically hand picked to be the heir apparent to Chris Chelios, they were way off in contract discussions, he had family stuff going on both sides of the house - so to speak, he went AWOL at one point for a short period of time, and ended up getting labeled a "cancer" in the locker room...which was bandied about by the media, shouted by fans, and what not to the point that the team had to address it specifically...

Whether he had an issue with Roy or whether that was concocted out of all the other stuff surrounding his late tenure in Montreal, I don't have a sense of...

I don't want to speak for him or the situation, but it just felt like a guy that probably could have benefited a lot from mental health being put a bit more in the forefront...if you were sad in the 90's, your choices were to drink or to rub some dirt on it basically...

This is the 2nd time in this thread where I've heard of the chelios comparison.

Where did this come from? He didn't have anywhere near the chipiness of chelios, and that is a big part of what defined him as a player. Did he have that reputation coming up?

 

[Michael Farkas]

Where did this come from? He didn't have anywhere near the chipiness of chelios, and that is a big part of what defined him as a player. Did he have that reputation coming up?

Serge Savard said it and Demers tried to back it. I don't know where they got that idea.

Sep 1994 Hockey News

Canadiens’ general manager Serge Savard called Schneider the next Chris Chelios after the Norris Trophy winner was traded to the Chicago Blackhawks in June, 1990 for Denis Savard. At the time, Schneider was a rookie with 48 games of NHL experience.

The trade has come back to haunt Savard, but Schneider has patterned his style after Chelios and might yet make Canadiens’ fans forget Savard’s gaffe. But Schneider still has a long way to go before he reaches Chelios’ stature.

“He does a lot of the same things as Chelios,” Demers said. “He scores, is capable of playing physical and defense, while giving us lots of other dimensions.”

I suppose we can go back and check out some games from this area and see if that physicality rap (attempt, "is capable of...") holds any water...but I suspect it won't. Especially not compared to Chelios...

 

[BB79]

Nothing, he was a solid D-man. An important piece of the 93 Canadiens cup winning roster. Highest scoring D-man on that team by a decent margin. Put up good numbers for Detroit too, unfortunately for him he came in right after their 02 Stanley Cup and left just before their 08 one lol