Speculation: If Jagr had been a "natural center"

[connor35]

That's a huge if. Tom Barrasso would probably have been a better center than Jagr. Great passer, skater, and has heard of defense.

I'd have to see Jagr play a lick of defense before I could get my head around the question.

 

[billybudd]

Eh, Yzerman and especially Lafontaine had more in common with Sid, stylistically, than they did with Francis. Francis was really meat and potatoes. Big guy with an incredible brain and a lot of attention to detail, but no flashiness at all. If he's got a highlight reel, it's going to be far more boring than anybody else I can think of in the top 50 scorers of all-time.

Tipped puck here, smart pass there, maybe a slapshot. Nobody's getting dangled by Ronnie Franchise, though. He may even have been able to (very good hand-eye coordination), but that was almost too high risk a play for him to even consider.

 

[gopens66]

Eh, Yzerman and especially Lafontaine had more in common with Sid, stylistically, than they did with Francis. Francis was really meat and potatoes. Big guy with an incredible brain and a lot of attention to detail, but no flashiness at all. If he's got a highlight reel, it's going to be far more boring than anybody else I can think of in the top 50 scorers of all-time.

Tipped puck here, smart pass there, maybe a slapshot. Nobody's getting dangled by Ronnie Franchise, though. He may even have been able to (very good hand-eye coordination), but that was almost too high risk a play for him to even consider.

Francis had the best one-timer-slap-pass that I've ever seen. The pass that Crosby made in Game 4 of the '09 finals to Kennedy was a routine play for Francis to Mario on the powerplay.

 

[Jag68Sid87]

Mario would have played left wing, though that doesn't mean they'd have been on the same line. Fun fact--for much of Mario's career, he was center in name only. Took the draw, moved over to left wing.

Mario's SECOND career, yes. He played predominantly left wing. But not early on. Early on, he was a center and Bob Errey was the left wing responsible for covering up for both Lemieux and left defenseman Paul Coffey. Errey had most of the responsibilities associated with playing the center position TODAY. But back in the 80's and 90's, the center position was more about scoring 100+ points (most teams had one) than challenging for the Selke.

Ron Francis was the exception, whereas today he'd fit right in with the Zetterberg's, Toews', Kopitar's et al of the hockey world.