So much poor reading comprehension on these boards sometimes. Let's clarify:
1) Saying Monahan is the fourth best center on this team is not equal to saying he is a 4th line center in the NHL. Last year Patrick Marleau was the fourth best center on his team behind Couture, Pavelski, and Thornton. He was still a first unit power play staple, a top six forward, a 27 goal scorer, and a natural center.
2) Saying Jankowski is a better center than Monahan may seem outlandish to anyone who has primarily watched the NHL Flames, but when you have watched both to any decent extent you can pick up on subtleties in how they approach situations, how and how quickly they react to different situations, their composure in the defensive and neutral zones, their puck distribution, their awareness, their puck skills, etc. You can handwave it all you like as guesswork, but "guessing" the other way isn't exactly a show of rebuttal - it's just your guess. It doesn't even mean Jankowski is a better offensive player. Backlund is a better center than Tyler Bozak. Who is more productive? Bozak. Annually.
3) Saying Monahan had to carry his linemates defensively is just disingenuous. Gaudreau is a master on the breakout, solid positionally. What he lacks in size is something that could be made up with Brodie et al's first pass and guess what Bennett's first pass out of the zone is one kf his strengths moreso than Monahan who generally can be erratic with the puck.Ferland while still not elite defensively is an excellent breakout winger who makes strong plays along the walls and reads leakouts well. While he might make a few mistakes he is overall a boon to his line defensively. And Monahan played more minutes with the top 4 than Bennett did, and less with the Engelland pair than Bennett did. Versteeg is an average defensive player, no real unique tools to give him an edge. Brouwer is awful, 8/10 plays in all three zones die on his stick. Chiasson was good defensively... Monahan and Bennett played almost equal minutes with him last year with Bennett having better results than Monahan with Chiasson on the ice. Quality of competition is a non factor - Monahan and Bennett faced almost identical QoC last year - below Backlund and above Stajan.
4) Why would someone "worried" about Monahan away from Gaudreau want to separate Monahan from Gaudreau? Any idea how silly that sounds given Monahan has a 6.35 million dollar salary? Monahan should be separated from Gaudreau to bolster our first line. His slower tempo shoot first style is also better suited to slower tempo linemates like Versteeg, whereaa Bennett gets frustrated with linemates who are twenty feet behind the play.
5) Appealing to Monahan being "proven" in his role doesn't push the needle for me. "Proven" would be a WCF appearance as our leading point getter in all situations. Ryan Getzlaf is proven in his role. Monahan is simply slotted in his - to me he is as unproven as Bennett or Jankowski with the only difference being raw point totals which are... dependant on role and can't be compared apples to apples if the roles are not the same.
6) None of the above means I hate Sean Monahan. That is the worst nonsense that gets tossed out by reactionaries. I LIKE SEAN MONAHAN. I think Sean Monahan took some huge individual strides last year. I argued Sean Monahan could be top ten in scoring this year in a main board thread a week ago. I just think we have three awesome players who are better at the positional duties of center, two of which are the same age as Monahan or younger and one who was foirth in Selke voting last year. Don't get your knickers in a knot because I want to see our roster optimized for best performance instead of being complacent.