By Adam Holt
Justin Schultz is not going to win the Hobey Baker Award.
There. Now that that’s out of the way, we can look at why, although he won’t win the thing, he could very well end up in the Hobey Hat Trick, and is a lock to be a top-10 finalist. The Wisconsin State Journal’s Andy Baggot makes his case here, so I’m going to look at some other things working for and against the junior defenseman.
The Wisconsin men’s hockey team begins its first-round WCHA playoff series at Denver tonight. That gives Schultz, who won his second-straight WCHA Defensive Player of the Year Award on Thursday, two games — at the very least* — to add to his numbers.
*History says Schultz has a good chance at playing more than two more games this season. Although Wisconsin is the No. 10 seed and Denver No. 3, the Badgers have a baffling history of postseason success against the Pioneers. Courtesy of Paul Capobianco’s game notes for the series, and also noted by Baggot, UW is 12-1-0 all-time in postseason games against DU, WCHA and NCAA playoff games combined. Wisconsin has also swept Denver in all three WCHA first-round meetings between the teams — most recently a 2007 series in Denver. Plus, UW is playing pretty well right now, and split two games at the Kohl Center with DU a few weeks back.
Schultz is second on the team in scoring, with 15 goals and 27 assists for 42 points. He leads UW in goals and he’s the highest-scoring defenseman in the nation, averaging 1.24 points per game. He’s an electric player, the type you can tell is special just by watching. He’s the kind of player other teams gameplan against, which is key to note because he’s a blueliner. That’s like… well, I don’t have a good analogy. But it doesn’t happen often. You just don’t worry about defensemen as offensive threats too often, and they’re pretty much NEVER the No. 1 guy you plan against.
That’s the good news.
The bad news is that he’s faded down the stretch, production-wise. He had a 12-25-37 line following a Jan. 27 loss at North Dakota. That means he’s scored just three goals and two assists in the nine games since then.
Granted, that Jan. 27 game was the first in five consecutive losses for UW, and the Badgers scored just seven goals in the span while allowing 19. So the team as a whole wasn’t playing well, which is trouble when the Badgers’ only consistent scoring threats were Mark Zengerle** and Schultz. Given that as a defenseman, most of Schultz’ scoring opportunities were going to come from away from the net, it was pretty easy to execute the “Don’t let No. 6 score on us” gameplan.
**Zengerle leads the Badgers in scoring at 12-37-49, and is fourth in the nation in points per game, with a 1.44 mark. He has an outside chance at being in the Hobey top 10, but every factor that’s working against Schultz — namely, the Badgers’ mediocrity and low chances of getting to the NCAA tournament — are magnified, because as a center, it’s less surprising for him to put up those kinds of numbers. There are plenty of comparable players, stat-wise, who play on teams that will make the tourney. And goalies, too.
Plus, Wisconsin, to put it bluntly, isn’t a very good hockey team. Hobey voters like to see great players from teams that are at least good. Wisconsin, as a whole, might not fit that description.
Part of that — most of it, in fact — is due to a combination of youth and talent. UW has just one senior and five juniors, one of whom is third-string goaltender Mitch Thompson. That means a lot of freshmen and sophomores are playing, many of whom are 18-20 years old. And in college hockey, where many players play a few years of junior hockey before jumping to NCAA competition, a lot of freshmen are 20 or 21 years old. And a lot of the seniors are 23 or 24. Physically, it’s tough for 18-year-olds to compete with guys five or six years older than them.
Plus, head coach Mike Eaves has to balance the talent on his team. I did a series last year on the problems facing NCAA hockey coaches and having players leave early for the pros, recruiting and all that. Simply put, Eaves can’t just go for all the most talented recruits — and doesn’t — because they’re likely to leave early and put the Badgers in a hole, like they were this season when Jordy Murray and Craig Smith left Zengerle, a sophomore, the de facto leader of the forward corps.
So a 16-16-2 record sounds about right for a young, young team with two freshman goalies, that has also battled injuries all year. Unfortunately, it doesn’t do much for Hobey Voters. UW’s first ever winner, Blake Geoffrion in 2010, was undoubtably helped by the fact the Badgers were a very good team and ended up going to the Frozen Four. Most Hobey winners lead their teams to the national semifinals. If you don’t, like 2011 winner Andy Miele of Miami, you better have ridiculous numbers — Miele had 24 goals and 47 assists for 71 points, the highest total since 2003, and fifth-most since 2002. The fact Miami was a No. 1 seed in the tournament helped too, even though the RedHawks lost in the first round to New Hampshire.
Back to Jan. 27, Schultz was just three points off the national lead at the time and was seventh in points per game with a 1.48 mark. He looked like he could shatter his previous single-season best of 18 goals, set in 2011. Schultz went 18-28-47 and posted a 1.15 ppg mark that season.
Still, a 1.24 ppg mark is nothing to scoff at, and it ranks 17th in the nation. He needs just three more goals to tie Craig Norwich for most career goals by a UW defenseman. Schultz is also just the third Badger in the Mike Eaves era to record back-to-back 40-point seasons.
Combine all that noise, and that’s a pretty strong case for Schultz to at least be considered one of the 10 finalists for the Hobey, just based on his offense.
If you want to put into better context what Schultz has done, here are some nuggets involving scoring in college hockey over the last 10 years or so (all figures factor in numbers from the 2001-02 through 2010-11 seasons — and come thanks to collegehockeystats.net):
- The NCAA scoring leader — at the end of the season, so including all postseason play — has averaged 1.66 ppg.
- The highest total was winger Peter Sejna, who posted a 1.95 mark for Colorado College in 2002-03.
- The lowest ppg leader was center Marty Sertich of CC, who posted a 1.49 mark in 2004-05.
- To finish in the top 10 in ppg, players averaged 1.30 ppg, i.e., that was the average for the 10th-place scorer in ppg.
- Schultz, with his regular season numbers this year, would have finished in the top 10 in ppg in 2004, 2008 and 2009.
- Among just defensemen, the points per game leader has averaged 1.15 ppg.
- The highest total in the time was shared by Matt Carle of Denver (a Hobey Winner) and Jamie Hunt of Mercyhurst, who both finished averaging 1.36 ppg.
- The lowest mark in that span was by Jack Hillen of Colorado College, who scored 0.90 ppg in 2007-08.
- The average finish for the highest-scoring defenseman among all skaters was 28th.
- A defenseman has finished as high as ninth — Hunt in 2005–06 — and 10th — Carle, that same year.
Should Schultz finish where he is in ppg among all skaters (17th), that would be the third/fourth-highest finish for a defenseman since 2002 behind Carle and Hunt in 2006 and former Badger teammate Brendan Smith (15th in 2010).
The point I’m getting at is, defensemen don’t do what Schultz does. He’s one of a small class of special offensive blueliners in the last decade. The fact his numbers are competitive compared to any hockey player in the country is impressive enough, and the fact he blows all other D-men out of the water should be enough to cement his status as a top-10 finalist.
And of course, there’s his play on the other side of the puck — he is a defenseman, after all. He’s a fast, fluid skater who plays smart, which makes up some for his 6-2, 185-pound frame. Schultz is tied for the team lead in plus/minus with a plus-11. That by itself isn’t particularly impressive; he was plus-14 as a sophomore, and the elite players in that category will finish seasons above the plus-20 mark.
Consider though, that Wisconsin has outscored its opponents just 101-96 this season. Factor in that Schultz has been on the ice for 68 of those 101 UW goals, as well as 27 of 33 power-play goals. Add in the fact he routinely plays 30-35 minutes a night, easily leading the Badgers. And that Wisconsin has the third-worst penalty kill unit (75.2 percent) in the nation.
Wisconsin allows 2.82 goals per game (35th in the nation). Schultz is on the ice for about half of every game, so over-simplified math would say he’s on ice for about 1.40 goals per game. That obviously isn’t accurate, but helps kind of put in context how impressive it is that he’s still plus-11 for the season.
Combine all that with his pedigree, and the case builds. As mentioned before, Schultz won the WCHA defensive player of the year award for the second-straight year, and is just the third player to do that since the award was started in 1991. CC’s Eric Rud did it in 1995-96 and ’96-97, while Minnesota’s Jordan Leopold won it in 2001 and 2002 — and Leopold won the Hobey in 2002, with a 20-28-48 line. Schultz is also now a two-time first-team All-WCHA selection. Schultz was a first-team All-American last season and a Hobey top-10 finalist — as a sophomore. His freshman year, he scored 22 points en route to being named to the WCHA all-rookie team. Those 22 points would rank fifth on this year’s squad, and although he quarterbacked the first-unit power play for the 2010 national runners-up, he wasn’t looked at to score — he was ninth on a team that featured four 50-point scorers and 10 20-point scorers.
It isn’t any one factor that makes the case for Schultz to be among the top three finalists for college hockey’s MVP. The scoring will be at the forefront, but he also does his job in his own zone. The glut of honors he’s received in his career show that he’s always been an outstanding player. Add in the fact he’s looked at to be the Badgers’ best player both offensively and defensively — and pretty much succeeded at it — and it might be enough to overlook how average Wisconsin has been this season.
It might be a crowded field at the top though. Spencer Abbott leads the nation in scoring (19-37-56) and might get Maine into the NCAA tournament field. Austin Smith of Colgate leads the nation in goals with 34, and Hobey voters adore high goal totals. And then there’s Jack Connolly of Minnesota-Duluth, who is tied for second in points per game with Smith at 1.53 per game, and plays for a team that has a good chance of being a No. 1 seed in the tournament and getting to the Frozen Four for a second-consecutive year.
Those three might be his main competition though, as there aren’t any super-elite goaltenders on great teams. Pencil in Connolly, a two-time WCHA player of the year, as one Hat Trick finalist. At least one of either Abbott or Smith gets in, too.
So is there room for Schultz? It might take a miracle run through the WCHA Final Five to earn an NCAA tourney spot to get Schultz to that top-three finish — and a few more goals and assists along the way would help.
Whether or not he actually gets it, it’s pretty clear the kid deserves to be recognized as one of the top three most outstanding players in the sport.
