Has Signing Troy Stecher Made Jordan Subban Redundant?

Training camp is underway, which means we’re at that time of year where we read far too much from lineup decisions and speculate on which fresh faces will force themselves into said lineup. This team’s unclear if poorly communicated vision coupled with the number of players knocking on the NHL door’s led to even more excitement, anticipation and general curiosity then there generally has been at this time in previous seasons.

Nowhere is this more apparent than on the Canucks third line. Enter the Canucks big ticket undrafted free agent, Troy Stecher. 

The prognosticators are in mid-season form, and their fiery hot takes stand as proof. Naturally, it’s Stecher who’s found himself embroiled in this media firestorm. Stecher, hailed by TSN 1040 AM’s David Pratt as the ‘next Ben Hutton’, is picking up steam as a dark horse candidate to make the team out of camp.

Stecher in the Canucks opening night lineup seems unlikely to me, but it’s not an entirely unfounded notion. Stecher’s stock is at its highest, after successfully completing a collegiate career with the University of North Dakota — the best team in Division 1 NCAA hockey. There’s a precedent here. 

I’m willing to bet at least one Canuck is less excited than most about Stecher’s emergence, though. And I’m fairly certain that Canuck is 21-year-old defenceman Jordan Subban.

Can there be too much of a good thing? If the answer is yes, that means Stecher’s success as an undersized offensive defenceman might make Subban a redundancy in the Canucks’ long-term plans. Especially with the swirling uncertainty that the Canucks brain trust has let hang over Subban’s time in Vancouver.

That is, in a word, ridiculous. Though, I should point out, Kuzma is hardly alone there. This has been a growing notion that’s taken hold of media and fans alike from the moment Vancouver locked Stecher up to an entry-level contract. This is just the latest in a long line of eulogies for Subban’s time in Vancouver. A terribly wrong one at that.

To begin, this type of statement assumes both are capable of making significant contributions at the NHL level someday. I’m not so sure that’s the case. Subban is the superior prospect, and it’s not particularly close.  

By pGPS, the best single-season sample we have for Troy Stecher shows that 6.5% of his height and production-based matches became NHL regulars. In contrast, 44% of Subban’s matches based on his most recent season in Utica became NHL regulars. 

Perhaps just as importantly, the two players don’t have much in common aside from their height. Subban is a tremendously dynamic player that projects as an offensive defenceman at the NHL level. In contrast, there’s nothing about Stecher’s statistical profile that suggests he will be a significant producer of offence if he reaches the NHL. He can skate like the wind, sure, but his offensive totals never really stood out until the past season, where he had a good three years on much of his competition and spent much of the season feeding passes to the best line in NCAA hockey.

That’s no knock on Stecher; it’s just that Subban has already completed a year of pro hockey, and acquitted himself well over that time frame, finishing in the top 10 for rookie scoring by defencemen in the 2015-16 season. Should Stecher make the NHL someday, his realistic best case scenario is a transitional two-way defenceman in the mould of Jared Spurgeon, whereas Jordan projects more like his brother, P.K., though likely not nearly as good. The idea that one weekend, at a prospect tournament no less, has significantly changed Subban’s chances of being an NHL player is patently ridiculous. 

Obviously, the eye test shone a favourable light on Stecher, who looked very composed at the Young Stars Classic in comparison to Subban’s inconsistent showing. He took two penalties and flubbed a pass to Mackenze Stewart that led to a Flames goal. To be fair to Subban, though, a pro defenceman probably doesn’t struggle to keep up with the pace nearly as much as Stewart did on that play. That’s why it’s so difficult to make judgments based on a prospect tournament. The spread in age and skill is so wide that it’s difficult to put what we’ve seen in context. I’d wager that Subban doesn’t get enough ice-time on a Travis Green-coached team to amass 36 points in 67 games if he’s missing passes like that on a regular basis. 

If you’re expecting either of Subban or Stecher to be on the Canucks’ roster this season, you’re getting ahead of yourself. The consensus seems to be that Subban needs to continue to develop and refine his game before he’ll be ready to handle the NHL, and Stecher has yet to play a single game of professional hockey. It’s already ill-advised to spend much time worrying about the height of your players, but doing so before they’ve even become everyday players in the NHL is downright foolhardy. The sad reality is, most prospects do not make the NHL, so it’s quite probable that this “problem” solves itself. In all likelihood, one of Subban or Stecher will simply never make the jump, so there’s nothing wrong with having two ostensibly similar players in your prospect pool. At this point, both players are lottery tickets. There’s nothing wrong with having more than one. The more tickets you have, the more chances you have to hit the jackpot. 

Now, let’s imagine for a moment that Jordan Subban and Troy Stecher both manage to become NHL regulars. Is that even really a problem? Could the two not coexist peacefully? It’s not as though any NHL defence corps comes with a “must be this tall to play” sign.  

Last season, most NHL teams employed at least one sub-six-foot defender that logged significant minutes in their top six. Five employed two- Carolina, Dallas, Florida, Philadelphia, and Tampa Bay. Of those five teams, four made the playoffs. Three could be considered Stanley Cup contenders. Another two teams, Nashville and Boston(!), are expected to enter the 2016-17 season with two defencemen in their top-six that measure 5’11” or under. That’s right; even the Big Bad Bruins aren’t afraid to ice a couple of smurfs in their defence corps, as long as they can play hockey. 

The fascination with size among NHL talent evaluators borders on fetishistic. But even that’s changing. The game is only getting faster, and in three to four years, when Jordan Subban and Troy Stecher are both in their prime as hockey players, it’s conceivable that speed and puck-moving skill will be more coveted assets on the back end than size and grit. Even if that isn’t the case, and Canucks management believes this team won’t be able to withstand having two small defenders in their lineup, giving up on Jordan Subban now, when his value is arguably at it’s lowest, would be an unwise move. So let’s not get all hot under the collar over a couple of prospects before either has even come close to cracking an NHL roster. Having an abundance of skilled players is never a bad thing. Just ask the Pittsburgh Penguins.