Rob Schremp In His Draft Year

Veteran readers here at the Nation will recall that back in February I did a mammoth nine-page/4000-word profile on Oilers’ prospect Rob Schremp. I didn’t think I’d have any more to add to it. I was wrong.

Tyler Dellow at mc79hockey.com had an inspired idea over the last few days: he went back to Schremp’s draft year, grabbed the draft-eligible forwards, and broke down their scoring into even-strength and power-play point production. He discovered something remarkable.

For starters, Rob Schremp’ production came almost exclusively on the powerplay. We might have guessed that from Kyle Woodlief’s 2004 scouting report (where he talked about Schremp needing “lots of ice to work with”), but I doubt we would have recognized the true extent of the inbalance. In total, 47 points – 63% of Schremp’s total production – came with the man advantage. At even-strength, he was actually a below average point-producer, as a quick comparison to fellow ’04 draftees Liam Reddox and Dave Bolland shows us:

It’s also probably worth noting that 63% of Reddox’s even-strength assists were primary, as opposed to just 43% of Schremp’s.

Gabriel Desjardins of Behind the Net took Tyler’s discovery of the 2003-04 OHL game sheets one step further. He used my quality of competition method and ranked the draft-eligible 2003-04 forwards by how difficult the minutes they played were. The entire list is here; I’ll just compare Schremp to his teammate Dave Bolland and again to Liam Reddox:

Basically, this means that Dale Hunter did his level best to get Rob Schremp out on the ice against sub-par opponents, while players like Reddox and Bolland posted their totals against superior opponents.

This matters quite a bit since the vast majority of the game – and a player’s minutes – take place at even-strength. In his draft year, Schremp’s even-strength results were not especially noteworthy, as he put up fewer points in a far easier situation than did Reddox or Bolland.

In light of this, it’s perhaps unsurprising that both Dave Bolland and Liam Reddox have had better careers to date than Rob Schremp.