New York Rangers: An important year ahead for Brett Howden

Mention Brett Howden and you get a number of different responses from fans of the New York Rangers.  Let’s just say that Howden has his fans and his detractors.  It’s worth a closer look.

There’s no doubt that New York Rangers coach David Quinn likes Brett Howden.  Howden and Quinn both arrived at the same time, Howden in the McDonagh trade with the Lightning and Quinn just two months later from Boston University.  When the Rangers got him, most observers had Howden pegged as a top five prospect for the Lightning.

Howden had been a first round draft pick for Tampa Bay, picked 27th overall in the 2016 NHL Entry Draft.  When drafted he was coming off a point-a-game season for the Moose Jaw Warriors of the WHL, scoring 24 goals and 64 points in 68 games.  He exploded offensively the next two season with 81 and 75 points, peaking with 38 goals.

The criticism has been that Quinn has been less reluctant to bench Howden or limit his ice time compared to some of his young teammates, especially those not from North America.  While it’s tough to prove that, it is worth taking  a look at how Howden has been doing since he joined the Rangers.

2018-19

To the surprise of many, Howden made the team out of his first training camp.  He did this despite playing only five games as a pro in a brief stint with the Syracuse Crunch before he was traded.  In essence, he jumped directly from Canadian Junior hockey to the NHL.

Howden got off to a great start.  In his first 23 games he scored four goals and added nine assists for 13 points, pretty good numbers for a 20 year old.  Even better, in 16 of those games his faceoff winning percentage was north of 50%.  His plus/minus was -1 for those games.  All in all, it looked like Howden was a keeper and Quinn was a master talent evaluator.

Howden hit a wall pretty hard.  Over his last 43 games he scored two goals and totaled 10 points.  His faceoff winning percentage dropped from 51% to 47%.   He was a minus 15 the rest of the season.  He still played a lot of minutes except for a five game stretch in January when he never hit ten minutes average time on ice (TOI).

His final numbers for his rookie season was 66 games, six goals, 17 assists for 23 points.  He was a -16 and finished with a 48.4% winning percentage on draws.  He had 64 hits and took 74 shots with a final shooting percentage of 8.1%.

2019-20

This was the season where you would look for improvement from Howden.  He again made the team out of training camp, unlike Filip Chytil who was sent to Hartford.  Firmly in place as the center of the third line, he got a lot of ice time on that line through mid-November.

Unfortunately, he didn’t produce offensively, a fact that was disguised by the amazing output of the Panarin line. In his first 23 games, Howden routinely played over 15 minutes a game and he scored  only three goals and added only four assists. Moreover, his faceoff prowess was gone as he won only 47% of his draws with the low point a November loss to Florida when he lost 15 of 19 faceoffs.

In essence, Howden was repeating what he had done over the last two thirds of his rookie season. Still, Howden played in all 70 games for the Rangers, though he dropped to the fourth line center or third line winger when Chytil returned from Hartford at the end of October and was given the third line center slot.

If the season ends today, Howden’s year would have to be called a disappointment.  While he has played all 70 games, his average TOI dropped 13:09.  He did score three more goals with nine, but had seven fewer assists with ten.  He finished with 19 points compared to 23 in his rookie season in fewer games.  He did improve his plus/minus to -11.

His faceoff winning percentage was practically the same, 48.2% compared to 48.4%.  His role definitely shifted this season as he had virtually no time on the power play compared to 1:22 average TOI in his rookie year and his penalty kill time increased from 1:15 per game last season to 2:00 per game this year.

Possession Statistics

One area that Howden has not done well in is in advanced stats.  In looking at his possession metrics, for two straight years, Howden has had bad numbers.  In his rookie year, his Corsi For % was one of the worst on the team, only better than Boo Nieves and Cody McLeod. His percentage was 42.4% meaning that when he was on the ice, the Rangers had just over 42% of the shot attempts.  In comparison, fellow rookie Chytil had a Corsi For of 46.7%.

This season, Howden was again at the bottom, this time the worst of any forward who appeared i 20 games or more. His percentage dropped to 40.3%.  Of the regulars, only defenseman Libor Hajek was worse at 37.2% and he found himself sent to Hartford in January for rehab from an injury and never made it back.

His future

Brett Howden is rapidly getting to a point when the team is going to have to make a decision on what to do with him.  He benefited from the Rangers’ lack of depth at forward, but they are taking steps to alleviate that.  If they re-sign Ryan Strome it will give the Rangers three solid centers ahead of Howden in Zibanejad, Strome and Chytil.

It’s no coincidence that the Rangers signed two college free agent centers in Patrick Khodorenko and Justin Edwards and that they would like Morgan Barron to turn pro.  Even if they let Greg McKegg leave via free agency, it’s clear that Howden will have more competition than ever next fall.

It’s much too early to label Brett Howden a bust.  He just turned 22 last week and if you look at his 2016 draft class, only two forwards taken after him in the draft, Alex Debrincat and Jesper Bratt, have scored more NHL goals than Howden.  In fact, of the 17 forwards taken in the first round in 2016, only seven have more than Howden’s 42 career points.

No matter what, if the New York Rangers expect to take that huge step into serious playoff contention in 2020-21, they will need more from players like Brett Howden.  The clock is ticking.