The Habs should put Semin back in the lineup

Montreal Canadiens head coach Michel Therrien has a history of shunning players away from his teams.

It happened with Daniel Briere. It happened with P.A. Parenteau. It happened with Jiri Sekac, and now it might be happening with Alexander Semin.

Semin has been a healthy scratch for four straight games, and he's expected to be scratched for his fifth game in a row tonight when the Montreal Canadiens take on the New York Islanders.

Semin has a goal and two assists in 10 games so far for the Canadiens. Therrien has said that Semin has had a difficult time adjusting to the speed in which the Canadiens play.

That may be the case, and it may take time for Semin to adjust to Montreal's speed, but Therrien would be wise to give Semin another chance relatively soon.

Semin, known for his shooting ability, has been a bit off so far this season. At even strength 5-v-5, Semin is shooting at just 7.7 percent, equal to his shooting percentage just last season. But that's well below his 11.4 percent career average at even strength 5-v-5.

That's not great, but that doesn't mean that Semin isn't excelling in other areas within his own offensive zone.

According to War On Ice, Semin may be one of the better forwards on the team at generating offense. In Corsi-For per 60 minutes of play, which basically means how many shot attempts a player and his team mates generate, regardless of whether the shots are on net or not, Semin is third on the team, right on par with Max Pacioretty. And if we look at how many scoring chances Semin and his line mates generate when he is on the ice, Semin has the fourth-most scoring chances per game when he is on the ice.

Semin has been exclusively teamed up with both Alex Galchenyuk and Lars Eller throughout this season. When the three are together, they generate a lot of shot attempts. But since Semin has been benched, both Galchenyuk and Eller have seen a decline in their overall shot attempts per game, as well as the amount of goals they are scoring per game. Take a look how both players perform with and without Semin (provided by Hockey Analysis). Galchenyuk has played 101:18 minutes of even strength 5v5 with Semin, 47:48 minutes without. Ellers has played 96:54 with Semin, 50:54 without.

Galchenyuk and Ellers' Production With Semin

Galchenyuk and Ellers' Production Without Semin

So if Semin is generating a lot of shots and scoring chances, and helping out his team mates, why isn't he producing at the rate Therrien would like to see him produce at?

Did you notice that Semin's ciricle in that above graph was a deep red? That color represents the amount of high-danger scoring chances that player generates per game. Semin's 8.57 high-danger scoring chances for per 60 minutes of play at even strength 5-v-5 is the lowest on the Canadiens.

And if we dive a little further, we can actually tell that Semin is taking the vast majority of his shots from a severe distance from the net. According to Sporting Charts, Semin's average shooting distance this season is 35 feet. That is a pretty large distance to shoot from, especially when nine of Semin's 15 shots this season have been wrist shots. How far is Semin's shooting percentage? Fellow team mate and line mate Galchenyuk's average shooting distance is just 27.66 feet this year.

That makes sense. Semin is not a particularly physical player, and tends to shy away from the dirty areas of the ice, which also happen to be the high-danger scoring areas. And because he is shooting from a far distance, his shooting percentage will naturally decrease. And with a low shooting percentage, you aren't going to generate too many goals. 

That's how Semin can get out of Therrien's dog house. He needs to get towards the dirty areas of the net. He's already generating plenty of offense, it's just not coming from ideal areas on the ice.

If Semin can take his attempts from a closer distance, accompanied with the large amount of offense he is already producing, he can quite easily see an uptick in his overall scoring production.

But, even if he doesn't get to those dirty areas, one thing is for certain: Therrien needs to put Semin back into the lineup simply because he generates a large amount of offense, and he is clearly improving his team mates overall play.

Why would you want a guy like that watching from the press box?

Graph provided by War On Ice