ESPN Article: Top 10 Centers in the NHL, as Ranked by Players and Team Officials

GreatSaveEssensa

The Dark Side Of The Goon
Feb 16, 2016
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Just a reminder that it's not the Toronto Maple Leafs' or their fans' fault that you are not satisfied simply being a fan of your own team. There's room on the bandwagon when you get older and mellow in the barrel enough.
Bandwagon...... Is that the one that has the wheel issues? Don't they keep falling off sometime around the end of the 1st round year after year?
 

Rants Mulliniks

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Jun 22, 2008
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That’s a valid point under these circumstances but not really what I was questioning. Other people might be. I’m not even pointing at Auston specifically. My point is more that PPG isn’t the only consideration and should take a back seat to actual production. Auston has plenty of both if he can stay healthy, which he has the last two years including this one

PPG is actual production. So is P/60.
 
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Yackiberg8

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That’s a valid point under these circumstances but not really what I was questioning. Other people might be. I’m not even pointing at Auston specifically. My point is more that PPG isn’t the only consideration and should take a back seat to actual production. Auston has plenty of both if he can stay healthy, which he has the last two years including this one
This is a terrible way to evaluate a players ability.

If you were drafting players for next season would you rather the guy who scored 80 points in 82 games or the guy who scored 75 points in 50 games played but was injured for part of the season?

You’d have to be pretty dumb to not realize the guy with 75 points was the better player.
 

Adam Fox Time

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Jan 1, 2020
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Very interesting...

Earlier today this was the top article on espn.com, and they now have NHL as one of the leagues/sports on their main header. They haven't done this in awhile - I think they must have just made this change today, now that March Madness is over.

Seems like ESPN cares about hockey again!
 

The Hanging Jowl

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Apr 2, 2017
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I'm shocked SHOCKED a couple of trolls have turned this into a thread with every second post arguing about Matthews being included on a list of the top centres in the league. Even an unbiased poll like this.

The hate runs deep.
 

The90

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Feb 27, 2017
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It is. 318/368 x 331 points is an accurate number to describe his actual production. So he is good for about 75 points each season. Which is impressive considering his rookie year is included. There is just no reason to overstate it.
Or make a fool of ourselves trying to diminish the context of that.

Sick mental gymnastics you have going on there lol
 

pb1300

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Worse performance over the past two years. He has hasnt played well in the playoffs like Crosby and doesnt have as much game breaking ability as Matthews

Defensively the gap is smaller than people try and make it to be with Crosby and Matthews both being good defensive players

Right now, Barkov is the better hockey player, Matthews is the better goal scorer. Stats, eye test, advanced stats, etc. all point to Barkov. Matthews is one of the premier goal scorers in the game, but that’s where his advantage ends over Barkov.
 
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BKarchitect

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bucks_oil

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Aug 25, 2005
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PPG is actual production. So is P/60.

At this top end I disagree on P/60.

Every coach is going to play a top 5 center every chance they can unless they:
1) aren’t suited to all situations play, in which case re-evaluate their top 5 status, or
2) don’t have the conditioning, in which case re-evaluate again.

These guys are all played in all situations thus I disregard P/60.... show me absolutes.

the only time you should look at rates among comparing the ELITE is PPGF/60 and PKGA/60 since in both cases a positive outcome influences TOI (eg if you can score in 25 seconds of a PP credit to you... if you can elapse the full shift of your PK credit to you)

After that, TOI is a function of the coaches decision and so the denominator gets larger for all of these guys based on a desire to have them out there as much as possible.
 

BKarchitect

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I didn't post the RAPM charts to make any bold declarations but just wanted to add more data to the discussion outside point production...obviously no data should be evaluated in isolation.

A few thoughts:

1) See those three bold blue bars on the McDavid 2020-21 chart? The ones that are exploding off the page? That is why he's the world's best...when he has even a mediocre support system around him, he simply cannot be contained.

2) Draisaitl's offensive metrics are of course all-world. I would say defensively, of this elite group - he's the worst...or...to put it another politically correct way - he's put into position in terms of role and usage in a way that has the least positive impact on defensive metrics. Assuredly, some of the orange and red is team and role based but you can see that McDavid, on a better team this year, has taken a big jump in xGA and CA while Big Drai hasn't. Thoughts Oilers fans?

3) MacKinnon is a possession and Corsi monster. He simply tilts the ice like nobody else - and that's why, outside of raw point totals - he's widely viewed as the #2 center in the league. But McDavid's season this year should put to rest any hipster notion that there is a race for #1.

4) Barkov was rightfully criticized for a poor 2019-20 season by his standards but has come roaring back with an epic season - his xGF and CF are outrageous and his defensive metrics are back top being elite and the best of this illustrious group. With advanced stats backing up his effect on the ice and the Panthers at near the top of the NHL because of it - I think you can make a case that Barkov is having the second best/most valuable season of any center in the league. That's not to say 19-20 didn't happen or that he's ahead of Matthews of whomever based on a larger sample size. But he's been great this season as has his team.
 
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pb1300

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I didn't post the RAPM charts to make any bold declarations but just wanted to add more data to the discussion outside point production...obviously no data should be evaluated in isolation.

A few thoughts:

1) See those three bold blue bars on the McDavid 2020-21 chart? The ones that are exploding off the page? That is why he's the world's best...when he has even a mediocre support system around him, he simply cannot be contained.

2) Draisaitl's offensive metrics are of course all-world. I would say defensively, of this elite group - he's the worst...or...to put it another politically correct way - he's put into position in terms of role and usage in a way that has the least positive impact on defensive metrics. Assuredly, some of the orange and red is team and role based but you can see that McDavid, on a better team this year, has taken a big jump in xGA and CA while Big Drai hasn't.

3) MacKinnon is a possession and Corsi monster. He simply tilts the ice like nobody else - and that's why, outside of raw point totals - he's widely viewed as the #2 center in the league. But McDavid's season this year should put to rest any hipster notion that there is a race for #1.

4) Barkov was rightfully criticized for a poor 2019-20 season by his standards but has come roaring back with an epic season - his xGF and CF are outrageous and his defensive metrics are back top being elite and the best of this illustrious group.

Draisatl, while deserving his recognition as one of the best, has such a huge asterisk next to his name. He has it far easier than any center in the top 10 lost, by far. Over 70% of his total TOI this season, has been with 97, and when it’s not, his metrics take a dip. I’d like to see he would be doing if he was the #1 center on a team that didn’t include the undisputed best player in the world.
 
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Not My Tempo

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As much as I like Evolving Wild’s RAPM models, it’s important to recognize the regression techniques used in RAPM can break down at the extremes which I consider all of these players to be. However it is “nice” that those results more or less match the eye test.
 
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GIN ANTONIC

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A lot of pages and sniping to read through but Aho not even being an honourable mention... in fact not even being mentioned in the article in general. I guess they have him as lower than 15th or so. He’ll just keep doing what he’s does. 10th in scoring for centers over the last 3 seasons while playing excellent defence and on the PK and all that.
 

Rants Mulliniks

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Jun 22, 2008
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At this top end I disagree on P/60.

Every coach is going to play a top 5 center every chance they can unless they:
1) aren’t suited to all situations play, in which case re-evaluate their top 5 status, or
2) don’t have the conditioning, in which case re-evaluate again.

These guys are all played in all situations thus I disregard P/60.... show me absolutes.

the only time you should look at rates among comparing the ELITE is PPGF/60 and PKGA/60 since in both cases a positive outcome influences TOI (eg if you can score in 25 seconds of a PP credit to you... if you can elapse the full shift of your PK credit to you)

After that, TOI is a function of the coaches decision and so the denominator gets larger for all of these guys based on a desire to have them out there as much as possible.

I have no idea how you can watch the NHL and reach this conclusion.

For example, when people discussed Ovechkin vs Matthews for scoring, Ovechkin received, literally almost 20 full 60 minute games of extra PP time. Do you honestly think Matthews lacked the skill set or conditioning for extra PP time? In fact, when you are talking top players, rate production is all the more relevant. Why? Well the argument you get against rate arguments is "Yeah well it isn't linear", which in and of itself is a silly argument in that no one has ever said it is 100% linear. The angle those folks are trying to use is "well if I gave X third liner that time his raw totals wouldn't play out the same". No, likely not, because you are comparing apples to oranges. In this context you are comparing apples to apples. One would think when people see the very thing that was pointed out to them play out in real life, at some point they would stop and think "Huh. Maybe they were onto something?". Give comparable elite players similar ice time and odds are it becomes relevant to raw production. Games played in and of itself is no different than P60.

Individual coaches make decisions all the time that have little to nothing to do with player ability and sometimes more with coach style. This year (and part of last year) Keefe made the shocking decision to ride his horses. His team is on pace to set the franchise record for winning percentage.
 

Isaac Nootin

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Sep 28, 2017
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Draisatl, while deserving his recognition as one of the best, has such a huge asterisk next to his name. He has it far easier than any center in the top 10 lost, by far. Over 70% of his total TOI this season, has been with 97, and when it’s not, his metrics take a dip. I’d like to see he would be doing if he was the #1 center on a team that didn’t include the undisputed best player in the world.

Draisatl really shouldn't be included, since 70% of his time is with McDavid.

That means 70% of the time, he's not playing C.
 
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TheKrebsCycle

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Draisatl really shouldn't be included, since 70% of his time is with McDavid.

That means 70% of the time, he's not playing C.

I agree with what you're saying here but he did play alot of centre last season and the line was very good sans McDavid.
 

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