Who are your Elite Centers in the League?

[Revenge of Gru]

So I suppose Ilitch should just throw in the towel, fold the team and sell the players contracts to the other owners in the league, eh?

What are you even talking about?

 

[FMichael]

JT

 

[Steve Yzerlland]

Top 5 IN ORDER!
McDavid
Draisaitl
Matthews
MacKinnon
Barkov

 

[TheOctopusKid]

It doesn't need to be Top 5; personally, I think there are more than 5 Elite Centers going into 2021

 

[TheOctopusKid]

If I were to qualify it - the difference between an Elite Center vs. a Great Center, it would be the following:

• They Make Their Teammates Better - it doesn't matter if it's a journeyman grinder, a two-way power forward, and an inconsistent sniper, the player can elevate whoever is on the ice with them. The obvious example of this is the parade of plugs that Crosby has played with over the years - excluding Kessel. He turned a number of journeyman and mid-level talent wingers into Top Line Performers over the decades and continues to do it today. I think John Tavares is an example of a great Center, who doesn't make his teammates better. I think he is a great player who can do it all, but I never get the impression that the guys around him are better because of him - often time, I get the impression of the opposite.
• They are at least Good no matter what - they are system/situation/team agnostic. They could be playing for a great team, using the ideal system, with the perfect teammates or literally the worst system, with two guys they pulled out from the stands, this player delivers. At the same level? Probably not, but certainly still stands out as a talent. The clearest example of this was Joe Thornton: Stud in BOS, traded away, steps in with SJS, blows up. He's elite no matter where we was, or who he teammates where. Conversely, mid 2000's Scott Gomez was an absolute stud with a great system around him in NJ, went off to the Rangers to be their superstar and utterly imploded in his prime. Great Center, not Elite.
• They Statistically Perform like a Top Talent - at the end of the day, if you're an elite Center, you show up on the stat sheet. Is it always points? No, maybe it's incredible defense against top competition and you null them out, take all the defensive shifts, work the PK, and keep your team in it to win. But the stats are there to prove that you perform at an elite level across a number of facets of the game. You have to be statistically good. That should be obvious. This is more around the late stage ex-Elite Centers who are past their primes but still get mentioned as being "The Best!", but are a shadow of themselves, or playing incredibly protected minutes, or are actually being carried by their line mates. See: almost every ex-elite Center ever.
• They Do It Consistently - These guys show up, and sure there are cold spells, but they can take over and game and they do it regularly. There are lots of players with high ceilings but can't/won't reach it amount to a player with a lower ceiling. Elite tries to get there every time and does it more often than not. This is really a knock of the constantly injured, the lazy or uncommitted, or the bad characters. Elite Players play. They don't sit out, they don't destroy the team, they show up and can deliver, there are not nights offs. Kuzy is an example of a player who I would consider elite - except he is often very unreliable from night to night.