I find this a very interesting topic. As I recall. I believe your observations of Chucky are correct, and I'm only referring to Chucky as he was playing centre.
I guess my question is what type of play exactly defines a centre ?
I mean personally I like a guy who can play both ends of the ice. But if he cant , he not a legitimate centre ?
As an extreme, I look at Gretzky, and this is an extreme. He wasn't awful defensively but he did not have a good 200 foot game. But so what ? His line could generate 3-4 goals a game. They might have given up a lot of goals ( I read someplace Gretzky holds the record for most ES goals against with something close to 2300 ) but the positive was much, much greater than the negative.
But according to the Habs view, if you cant play a 200 foot game you are not a centre ( DD excepted ).
So there is only one Gretzky , but why is it if you have an offensive centre who is weak defensively, why is it not possible for him to be a centre if the overall positive outweighs the negative ?
Why is it that the reverse doesn't hold true ? I mean what if a guy is strong defensively but weak offensively, can he still be a centre on the top 6 ? MB reportedly went after Nick Bonino this summer, a 25 to 35 point player. I mean he wasn't going to play bottom 6 was he ? Why is he considered a good enough centre for us ?
Do real quarterbacks have to stay in the pocket ? Do they have to be able to scramble ? Does it matter as long as they are effective ?
MB said just because a guy can score 80 points doesn't mean he is a centre. Well okay, I agree. But if that player makes a positive overall contribution to the team when playing centre, why isnt he then ?
Absolutes are usually absolutely wrong. Just saying.
I agree with you. If a purely offensive player, let's say, has a clearly positive net goal differential influence on the team, they should still be allowed to ply their trade freely. Unfortunately, with Galchenyuk at C, that wasn't usually the case and he had to be given sheltered minutes, except for the end of a lost cause of a season where he scored 30 goals.
Let me break it down -- that famous Galchenyuk has proven that he is a #1C season where he scored 30 Gs -- and show you how he scored 30Gs in a lost cause and by cheating with a net result despite scoring plenty of goals. He wasn't alone, mind you, and I'm not blaming him for doing so. At the time, I had hoped he would have, at least, gained confidence from it and moved on to another level. I am not anti-Galchenyuk, by any stretch, but let's not perpetuate falsehoods like some posters do.
In response to Bryson that s making me waste a lot of time unnecessarily by calling me out for things that just aren't so:
In his 30-goal season, Galchenyuk scored 20 of those goals in the season's last 40 games -- 15 of those in the last 22 games! Amazing, right? Not really.
In the last 40 games, MON lost 62.5% of its games (losing 25 of 40). In the last 22 games, despite Galchenyuk's amazing scoring prowess, MON lost almost 55% of its games (54.545%), going 10Ws and 12Ls in that stretch.
Now, Galchenyuk isn't guilty, on his own, of this misfortune, for sure, but he certainly wasn't playing a 200' game in a lost cause of a season and, not unlike Pacioretty, was padding his stats as he could. As I said, I hoped that it would have helped him gain the confidence, at least, to reach another hight as a player going forward. It didn't. Not yet, at least. Not in Montreal.
Maybe in Arizona, but there are no guarantees of it happening there either. If the ARI coaching staff is willing to live with a negative goal differential when Galchenyuk is on the ice as a top-6 C, fine, he's a shoe-in to get 30 again. If Galchenyuk finally puts the effort in -- even more than in his last season under Julien (it was a good sign, though, near the end of the season), and continues to improve his 200' game going forward, he might gradually turn that goal differential into an even keel statistic or, even, a positive statistic. That's still a lot of 'if's.
Besides, again in response to Bryson's comment that I'm overlooking that MON started playing .500 hockey when Galchenyuk scored 30, that's just not true and, by playing .500 hockey, you are far from making the playoffs, even had the team been playing .500 hockey. The injuries didn't help, of course, but the 15 goals in 22 games, still without a .500 record, mind you, was aided by the return of Gallagher, if I'm not mistaken.
At this point, Bryson has only proven to me that he's willing to make me waste my time by asserting just about anything in defense of what he purports, so I'll just assume that he's blowing smoke up my arse next time he quotes any statistic, instead of looking it up to make sure that my memory isn't flawed.
I say as much, at least, when I'm not sure.
Back to answering your question about a more offensive player's positive contribution to a team, though, Yanik:
Some of the blame is on the team, as always. There is no absolute blame, though, not on the player, not on the team. As with Michael Bossy, it is also up to the team to find the right complementary players to maximize the value of its talented players. Arbour told Bossy, early on, when Bossy expressed his concerns about his defensive play:
"You just worry about scoring and I'll play you with players that can handle the defensive side of the game."
That didn't mean to forgo all defensive responsibilities, but it did mean that Bossy shouldn't let his weakness dictate how he would play the game.
Now, Bossy was a RW and it's a lot easier to graft a 200' C on a line to play with a RW and have that line be, overall, defensively responsible, enough, anyhow, to have a distinctly positive goal-differential if that RW scores 50+ a season.
If Galchenyuk had been filling the net bi-nightly, there would have been zero talk about his inferior defensive play, but, again, apart from that loss leader season where he scored 30 goals while cheating defensively, he wasn't the offensive threat that some make him out to be. Not enough, anyhow, to absolve him from his defensive responsibilities.
In the end, the cult to Galchenyuk has blown out of proportions the question of Galchenyuk's need to play defensive hockey. In reality, the team didn't expect him to be the next Patrice Bergeron. They just wanted him to be statistically solvent (goal-differential wise) to justify playing him regularly as a top-6 C (or W, for that matter) against other teams' top lines instead of needing to give him sheltered minutes.
I agree that MON should not seek to transform every player that they have and should better surround them with complementary players, but there is a responsibility on the player's side to try and, at least, improve their overall game to a decent level.
Galchenyuk's play in his own zone against the Rangers, two years ago, was downright atrocious, like a deer in headlights completely unsure where to go and meek in his battles against opponents anywhere on the ice, offensively and defensively. He was lost, but I feel for him there. I don't blame him, per se.
At the end of last season, he was at least noticeably improving his 200' game and seemed to have finally espoused the teachings of Claude Julien. From where he was at the end of last season to where he needs to be to be good enough still requires work, but it appears to be attainable for the still young forward. being responsible enough defensively to play top-6 minutes may give ARI a 25-G, 55-60 point C, in the end, with top years where he scores 30 again and closer to 70 points, but I doubt that it happens next year, maybe not even the year after that with a net goal differential at the same time.
That's the nuance about Galchenyuk's 30-goal season.
I'm still optimistic that he can continue to progress in ARI, but a lot of it will depend on both the player and the team's treatment of the player.
