Makeshift Wings

What impact does playing center have compared to on the wing?

Being able to play center can make or break your career at the NHL, or at least it did at one point. Wingers are getting paid top dollar now, as well but there is always going to be more of a premium placed on centers. There are fewer available spots around the league and if you can find a long-term option there, you’re set. What’s always interesting to me is there’s no shortage of centers coming into the league through the draft but whether they stick it in the NHL is a different story. This was always an interesting debate to me because the decision of whether a prospects is going to play center for his career usually happens early from whatever coach he had when he was a rookie or finding his way in the league.

Watching it in action is another thing because the game isn’t as rigid as it used to be & when a team is cycling the puck, most would have a hard time identifying who the center is if you took the names off the jerseys. With some players it’s obvious, Jack Eichel comes to mind. He’s usually the last guy out of the zone, loves lugging the puck coast-to-coast after helping down low and plays most of his shifts in the middle. Whereas an obvious winger like Owen Tippett is usually outside the faceoff circles when he has the puck & challenging the points when he’s in the defensive zone. That said, sometimes we think positions go as they’re written in the lineup card, but it doesn’t always work like that.

I go back to Martin Necas’ time with the Hurricanes. He was drafted as a center but was listed almost exclusively as a winger in the lineup. Faceoffs and his play without the puck were the reasons why he was never trusted at center, but if you watched most of his shifts he acted as somewhat of a de facto center. The play usually went through him & he would often be low in the zone to help dig pucks out or start exits. He liked driving the middle and quarterbacking the offense at five-on-five while a minimalist center like Jesperi Kotkaniemi or Jack Drury would fill the gaps to make the connecting plays.

To me, playing on the the wing only limited Necas in terms of who he could play with rather than what he could do, especially since the Hurricanes strength was always on the wings during his time there. After Sebastian Aho, there’s a pretty big dropoff in terms of offensive talent at center for the Hurricanes, so Necas didn’t have the offensive talent around on the wing. At center, his linemate options start to open up and that’s true of most teams. Seth Jarvis goes from a potential linemate to a guy competing for a top-line spot is the best way I can describe it. Necas not being trusted at center affected who he played with rather than what he did.

I also think about the Stars old top line with Jason Robertson, Roope Hintz & Joe Pavelski, all three are natural centers and who played the role usually switched depending on the shift. Pavelski took a lot of draws as the only righty on the line, but he wasn’t always the center. Hintz played more of the traditional role as the puck-carrier on the line, but Robertson’s also very responsible with being in the right spot all the time & quickly distributing the puck to the outside. So the “center” on that line depended on the shift sometimes.

Like I said earlier, the game is more fluid now and offensive zone play is more of a F1/F2/F3 type of setup rather than the center does X while the wings do Y & Z. I don’t know enough about the coaching/systems aspect to know the roles of a center of every team, but charting some of the early games/line combos got me thinking on what kind of impact playing center has on some players. Are they better, worse or does it make a difference at all?

I highlighted three in particular, the first one is Connor McMichael, a somewhat proven player who is also still finding in his way in the league as far as his long-term role goes. Washington has bounced him back-and-forth between center and wing for most of his short career. Starting this season as either the first line left wing or second/third line center in Washington. The second is Sam Reinhart, a natural center who has played mostly on the wing with Florida alongside Sasha Barkov. With Florida’ star out for the season, Reinhart’s had to play some center, moving between different lines in the same game. Finally, there’s Trevor Zegras, a top-ten pick drafted as a center but started his career on the wing & mostly yo-yoed between the two positions in Anaheim. Now in Philly, he’s listed as a center but plays on a line with another natural pivot in Christian Dvorak & has been moved to the wing late in games. We’re going to take a deep dive into some of their early games & shifts to see what impact playing both positions has.