Brett Howden has already won a Stanley Cup, and there's a good chance he will compete for a second one with the Vegas Golden Knights up 3-0 against the Colorado Avalanche in the Western Conference Final. Howden scored his 10th goal of the playoffs, tying him with teammate Pavel Dorofeyev, and he's clearly been quite impactful for his team during this run.
His success has caused a bit of an uproar amongst Ranger fans, and many are wondering if he's just another example of the team's poor player development. The uncomfortable truth is that Howden is largely the same player he was in New York, and his sudden success does not change his reality with the Rangers.
Howden had his chances in New York, still struggled in Vegas
Howden spent 178 games with the Rangers organization, and during that time he scored 16 goals, while adding 33 assists for just 49 points skating 13:40 per game on average.
With Vegas he's appeared in 311 regular season games while scoring 58 goals, adding 56 assists, and tallying 114 points. By a per game rate, he was a 0.09, 0.19, 0.28 per game player in New York, and he's now a 0.19, 0.18, and 0.37 per game player with Vegas.
When looking at underlying metrics, Howden clearly struggled in New York, and those struggles carried over to Vegas with the exception of him being on the ice for more actual goals than expected goals.
Season | Team | GF% | CF% | xGF% |
|---|---|---|---|---|
2018-19 | NYR | 42.16 | 41.62 | 41.91 |
2019-20 | NYR | 37.93 | 40.91 | 40.76 |
2020-21 | NYR | 43.94 | 46.15 | 45.58 |
2021-22 | VGK | 57.02 | 49.02 | 53.59 |
2022-23 | VGK | 55.91 | 44.43 | 48.72 |
2023-24 | VGK | 43.43 | 45.54 | 46.34 |
2024-25 | VGK | 51.11 | 50.25 | 50.82 |
2025-26 | VGK | 46.12 | 49.93 | 53.25 |
These numbers, via Evolving-Hockey, paint a pretty clear picture of Howden. With the Rangers he averaged a 40.82 GF%, a 42.26 CF%, and a 42.17 xGF%. He was given opportunities to prove himself ahead of drafted talent like Lias Andersson and Filip Chytil, and Howden never met the moment but still drew more assignments. He probably should have been assigned to the AHL to develop his game with the Wolf Pack, but that never happened. His last season in New York saw him finish with seven points in 42 games, and he followed that up with 20 points in 47 games during his first season with Vegas.
With Vegas, his line is slightly better with a 49.68 GF%, a 47.92 CF%, and a 50.27 xGF% which makes him essentially a near league average player. Even looking at just this season, Howden appeared in 58 games and had 12 goals, 10 assists, and 22 points while posting a 46.12 GF%, a 49.93 CF%, and a 53.25 xGF%. And yet he's tied for the league lead with 10 playoff goals and has two assists as well for 12 points in 15 playoff games. His shooting is unsustainable, but that matters little to the fans out West who are cheering him on.
Just to prove a point, last year he appeared in 11 playoff games, and scored just three goals. The run before that he posted a goal and an assist in seven games. During Howden's first playoff run, in which he won the Cup, he had five goals and five assists for 10 points in 22 playoff games. So the long story short is that Howden's been amazing in his first and most recent runs, and meh in between.
Howden is making the most of an opportunity that wouldn't have existed in New York
Howden is obviously performing in these playoffs, and that's why the attention is back on the fact he was once a Ranger. And while it isn't nothing, there were no signs of Howden being capable of this level of play. That made the Rangers' decision at the time defensible, and there were no complaints when he was traded. Most of the fans were fed up with the chances he got, and there were no reasons for the Rangers to keep him around.
In fact, the Rangers top three centers the year after Howden was traded included Mika Zibanejad (81 points in 81 games), Ryan Strome (54 points in 74 games), Filip Chytil (22 points in 67 games), and later Andrew Copp who came over via trade and tallied 18 points in 16 games.
A year after that, the trio featured Zibanejad (91 points in 82 games), Vincent Trocheck (64 points in 82 games), and Chytil (45 points in 74 games). Howden would have never had an opportunity to play more minutes. Chytil has had unfortunate injury luck, but he was the better prospect who benefitted from increased opportunities. He took a while to breakout, as evidenced by his repeated seasons of 23 and 22 points, but the 2022-23 season was something that could have been a springboard had he stayed healthy.
Yes, there's a lot that can be said about the Rangers with their young players over the years whether it be misjudging or failing to develop talent. But in the case of Howden, they made the right decision. To be mad about the trade all of these years later is just finding something to be mad about for no reason.
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