The Athletic Hockey Show - The top 10 centers in the NHL right now

Episode Date: December 14, 2023

Hailey, Max and Sean take a deep dive into the top NHL centers, right now. The crew presents their top 10, from McDavid, MacKinnon, Matthews, Barkov, Hughes, to Crosby, Draisaitl, Pettersson, Eichel and Point, discussing their impact in the league and on their teams, and they take a look at some dynamic centers who just failed to make the cut.  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This is the Athletic Hockey Show. What's up, everybody? Welcome back to another episode of the Thursday edition of the Athletic Hockey Show. It's Haley, Salvy, and Max Bultman, and Sean Gentilly here with you. We're going to do a little deep dive episode again this week. Because the Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, boys, they've got all the news lockdown. The Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, boys. That's what they're called.

They don't have a fun name. It's just Ian and Julian, actually. And like whoever actually... And actually, like, whoever fills in for Ian. Is Ian the Wednesday host now? What happened to Ian? I actually don't know. Hey, what did you call us last week?

Thrones Day. Is that it was? It's Wednesday. Worsday. It's Wednesday again, actually. It's Wednesday night. We're recording this because none of us can get our schedules together for the Thursday show. I can.

Okay. Just kidding. Pretty sure you were late for this report. Just kidding. So it's fine. Everything's fine. We're doing a deep dive episode this week again. So again, if something happens Wednesday night, sorry.

Not going to hear about it here. But this episode, we're going to do a deep dive into the Jonas Brothers discography because they are headlining the stadium series. MetLife Stadium in February, and I just figured this would be a great opportunity to talk about their five studio albums. Did you see the Joe Jonas clip where he like sent Nathan Fielder a drink at a restaurant and Nathan Fielder sent him back a side of mayonnaise? Yeah. Nathan Fielder. That's my guy. That's no much cooler than Joe Jonas. It's not even close. Do you think Taylor Swift should date

Nathan Fielder next? No. No. No. She should stay with Travis. Hey, hey, hey. Stay away from him. That's what I say to Taylor Swift. Back off, lady.

She's happy with Travis Kelly. Okay, so can I ask a question about the Jonas Brothers? Sure. Are they okay? Like, weren't they just playing? I know Joe Jonas is getting or whichever one of them is married. Yes, Sophie Turner has a boyfriend already. Good for her.

Good for him. He looks so happy. Sophie Turner has had no interactions with Nathan Fielder lately. who won the breakup. But like, weren't they just playing arena shows? Yeah, they just had an arena tour.

I went to their tour and it was so bad. So. I think buddies, buddies going through it. I can imagine it. It honestly might have been the worst concert I've been to because my friend and I were very excited

to see the Jonas brothers as like 28-year-old, 28-year-old teenagers. and the audio was horrific. Joe, like, wasn't even singing. He was just, like, vibing in the corner of the stage. We were like, is he okay? And then the divorce was announced.

We're like, oh. So, yeah, I hope they're better for the stadium series because the Jonas Brothers show in Toronto was not good. They just played halftime in one of the Thanksgiving games, Max. I think they were they in Detroit? Like, well, like, these guys, they're like, they've segued into, like, no, it was a white wrap.

Yeah, yeah, Jack Harlow, that's right. Well, they played, okay, it might have been in Dallas and because they, they for sure played. No, that was Dolly Parton. I can say that for certain. It was, I, they were definitely on. Maybe they did the night game. There was some kind of Thanksgiving,

like, this is like, that's like where, that's where music, that's like artists go to die at this point. It's like if you were, if you were in deep enough shit, deep enough shit to have to play, at the Winter Classic or whatever, like Branson, Missouri is not far behind. Like, you're in trouble. And I just didn't think the Jonas Brothers were.

Billy Joel Armstrong holding up a little doll. It's totally. Would a down and out artists do this? Not a lot of, not a lot, not many bigger Green Day fans than me. But like, those guys haven't made a vital record in, you know, 20 years at this. I just want to be clear that I was joking about the Jonas Brothers thing. Like, if you've made it. to this part of the podcast.

Thank you for being loyal. This is not a Jonas Brothers episode. Yet. Not yet. The draft of the Jonas Brothers songs is in the third segment. And I get the first overall pick and I'm taking Burning Up. Oh, that's a good one. It is a good one.

So anyways. Is year 3000? Is that them? Yeah, that is them. Anyways, the actual point of this show is we're going over the top 10. centers in the NHL. The top 10 centers we would want for the rest of the season, top 10 centers playing right now. We're not trying to build. We spent way too much time with the Jonas Brothers. I think we've lost everybody. These are the top 10 centers that we've decided on the three of us.

And it's not looking at who we would want to build around over the next five years. It's not who were the top 10 centers the future. It's, let's just say if there was, we had to pick the top 10 guys we want for the rest of the season, this is our list. You guys have any qualifiers you want to say first? I just think that's an important thing to remember that like, these are the guys who we want for the next 50 or 55 or,

you know, whatever, 70 games. If you're thinking about the playoffs, right? Like that's an important thing to remember. And I say this is someone who's like ranked way too much. stuff and ranked way too many players over the last,

over the last few years. Like you got to set the parameters the right way, right? This isn't like necessarily you're building a franchise or this isn't the guys who have been the best players, you know, from October to now. Like this is just who we want from now until, you know,

maybe some point in June. I think it's an important thing to set pretty definitively there. My only qualifier is that I have been yelled at by a lot of senators fans already in the last week. And I do, I do think Tim Stutz was going. Oh, that's a horrible. It was a hit thing. Yeah. Yeah.

Anyway, I do think Tim Stutz is a very good player. You going to crack that one back open for the pod, buddy? No, I don't actually. Let's not talk about that. Yeah. So we've set the parameters because they're a. important. So here's our top 10 list. And it's not in a totally specific order. I think. No, it is. It is. We agree on the way that this is ordered right now. Well, we didn't agree in the

creation of it. This is where we've landed and we'll talk about the shape. Yeah, we can maybe move from people around. But as of right now, we've got, I think we all feel pretty comfortable with the top three at least. So Connor McDavid is number one. I think we all can agree on that. Connor McDavid he plays for the Oilers You might have seen him facing against Connor Bedard The next great rivalry

in the NHL That's bait A question is bait Number two Nathan McKinnon Number three Austin Matthews And we'll talk about all these players

Once we get through the list here Number four What What? Why did you just make that noise? Do you have something to say? Are we just, are we're just revealing all of them right now? Let's talk with that top tier. Do you not listen when I go over the lineup of the show before we start recording the show? Yes. Clearly not. So this is the top three. We will start with the top three as Max just said and then we can go over the rest. So number one, Connor McDavid. Number two, Nathan McKinnon.

number three, Austin Matthews. I think we all are in agreement of the top three centers in the NHL right now and the top three centers we'd want for the rest of the season. Correct? Any objections? The Oilers are back. I know we're going to talk about them at some other point in this, in this ring, of course. But like, they're back because he is producing at a completely out of control level already, right?

Like they're 13, 12, and 1. They have 27 points. All of a sudden, their points percentages is above 50. And they've been left for dead three separate times this season, I feel like. And that is not 100% because of Connor McDavid in the run that he's been on. But it's like, it's like pretty close. Like we were waiting for, I didn't, I didn't think it would happen two weeks before Christmas. I didn't think he would drag them back into the, into really close to a wildcard

spot by December 13th, and that's like, here we are. It's wild. He's pretty good. So Connor McDavid has 25 points in his last 10 games. Decent. I want to know, would this have changed for you? Like, basically, what would Connor McDavid have to do to not be number one on a list? If we had checked it on this before those last 10 games, where I think he was actually even a notch below a point per game at that point. And Nathan McKinnon's obviously been on an absolute tear all season. Would even that have changed? What would have to be the case?

I think I would have had McKinnon number one with the qualifier that like McDavid is the best player in the world, but McKinnon is playing better right now. Does that make sense? If we did this three weeks ago? Because McDavid, but the thing too, though, is McDavid was clearly he came back from the injury to play in the winter. classic. He clearly wasn't 100% up to speed, at least the way he was playing. The team is a mess. But I don't know. It's a good question, Max, because I feel like that still wasn't 100% healthy Connor McDavid. But I do wonder, I do wonder if I would have said, like, as of today,

I would say that McKinnon is playing better. I don't know if I would ever say that anyone was like better than McDavid. But we were having this conversation. There were conversations and maybe it's just because I live in Toronto, but people were being like, ooh, is Austin Matthews close the gap when he had the 60 goal season, right? Well, and they're, even with McKinnon when the abs won the cup, like I think we can all agree. There are things about Nathan McKinnon. We prefer to Connor McDavid, right?

I think his compete is on a different level than most of the NHB. We've obviously seen him when. Personality. Yeah. I mean, you could take that either direction, I suppose, right? Not that McDavid's not a competitor, but I think when you watch McKinnon, there's a level of just kind of aggression that I think is a super desire. trade.

I think that even shows up a little bit defensively. And so, you know, obviously people can have their various opinions on McDavid and the offense, defense tradeoff there. But I think there are things that you could point to and so you prefer about McKinnon. It's just a question of like, there's absolutely no one else in the NHL who can take over a shift to the degree that Connor McDavid can, right? I think, right, I think I'm at the point now where I would have to see like two seasons worth of someone being substantially

tangibly overall better than McDavid for me to even consider the point. And I know like, then that was, now was part of it during Matthews, during the Matthews MEP season.

I understand that's a, it was a discussion. I, even then, though, like, personally I rejected it. I know, I know that there's,

they're smart, there's smart people who didn't and I, that's fine. I do just lap the field, I think, to an extent at this point. Like, he's built up enough cred where you got to have a protracted amount of time. Like, it's like an Ovet, like, those couple years where Ovechkin just seemed like he was lost in the wilderness and playing, he's playing right wing. And he was with a coach. He didn't know how to use them.

And like, that spurred relevant questions over how good Alexander Ovechkin was going to be for the rest of his career. And it would need to be something like that for me to, like, consider. all that seriously, honestly. I have a kind of interesting consideration for you guys, too, and this is maybe a little bit. This is another side track. It's a little bit more relevant than the Jones Brothers one. But I'm on the committee or the panel or the group that votes on the Canadian athlete of the year. And last year, I was, like, really banging the table for Mary Philippe Poulin.

And that was a big debate, and she ultimately won. And then this year, it wasn't even really a debate. like everyone just kind of most of the conversation was about um shay gildjus alexander or o kc who you know won bronze with canada at the feeba they qualify for the olympics he's averaging 30 points a game this season already great player in the NBA da da da da da but then there were like a few very specific hockey people who were being like we are completely underrating what mac david did last season and that's the one thing that's interesting to me is like Connor McDavid did everything he did last season, which is have the best

offensive statistical year since Lemieux in the 90s off the top of my head since Marley Lemieux in like what 97. And that still wasn't like technically the best athlete in Canada. And he won, you know, the heart. He won the Ted Lindsay last year. He like literally just won everything except for the Stanley Cup. And that was one thing to me. I was like, should McDavid have won this award? SGA is a great hooper, but McDavid's season last year in the scope of like, and maybe this is more a conversation about like basketball versus hockey, but it seemed like it was almost just underrated what he did last year. Maybe people just forgot because the Oilers had such a bad start. I think we can, we talked about this last week, didn't we when we're talking about awards ballots or whatever? The three of us have talked about this at some point recently where there's some, there's a level of fatigue. that sets in and it's unfair. We never won this award before.

So it's not fatigue. That's a good point. I think it's a similar kind of principle though where it's like it's the banality of greatness. It's like we take this, we take it for granted when we see someone who's with play and production as remarkable as the level that he's attained over the last few years. And it's something we saw from Michael Jordan. and it's something we saw it from LeBron James and it's something that I, the example I used last week was Shaq that dude won one MVP, which is preposterous.

It's ridiculous, but people, you know, you see it up close and you see it for that. I think it deadens, it deadens voters when it comes to this stuff to some of the actual impact of it. And I think it's like true for, true for the award that you're talking about. I agree. And the other thing that Haley said that struck me was he won bronze

for Team Canada. at the FIBA. Now, I don't know how you weight these things, but if McDavid had won gold for Team Canada at any kind of best on best event, surely that swings the award, right? Like, how much is he being disadvantaged by the fact that hockey is not giving its players best on best looks? Totally. 100% max. And like, that was a big part of the SGA conversation, which was like what he did for basketball in Canada. And McDavid's been kind of stripped of the opportunity to talk about what he's done for hockey Canada, team Canada.

So it's a great point. 153 points last season. And he did that for a Canadian team. SGA did not. So that, I think, would have been one of my rebuttals. He did all that for Oklahoma City.

I know. And then there was a... Find Oklahoma City on a map. Canadian journals. Let's see what happens. I don't even think I could do that. Yeah. Stupid.

West Texas. Where is Delaware? What is Delaware? I believe was the phraseology of that. Sean will never let me live this down. I asked him once, what is Delaware? But I meant it like, what's the deal with Delaware? I was like, what's the deal with Delaware is what I meant.

But Sean's like, it's a state. You idiot. I was like, I'm Canadian. I live in Ontario. Like, I don't. At least one famous politician has roots there. Come on, man. Come on, man.

Interesting. Come on, man. Oh, this is, oh, whatever. It was Delaware. Delaware is a state. Delaware is a state, man. Anyways, Connor McDade. Firmly, comfortably in the number one spot.

McKinnon, we already touched on a bit, but he's having an excellent season. I was looking at Dom's player cards, which looked beautiful this year, by the way. I had an input there, I'd like to say. Okay. They're sortable. It's by division now,

so you don't have to open 32 team player cards. If you want to find the top 10 centers by Dom's model, you just open up the divisions and then filter by centers, which is great. It looks so much better. And McKinnon actually has that, you know what, that's incorrect. Barcov has the highest net rating so far this season.

But Nathan McKinnon has a higher net rating by Dom's model than McDavid right now, which is plus 25. He's having a great season. I think I don't, I'm sure there is a debate for some people in the two three spot of who's better McKinnon or Matthews, but I feel pretty comfortable saying Nathan McKinnon's the number two. Isn't that debate just limited to Ontario?

I don't, I can't anybody outside. So I said I'm sure there are some people. Right. I, McKinnon has done so much in this league at this point. And Matthew scores the goals. I think he's an underrated defensive player. He's the clear. He sure is.

Are you talking about McKinnon or Matthews? Matthews. Matthews. He's an underrated defensive player for all the shit that the Leafs take on that topic in particular. I think when I watch him, he's incredibly a big reason why that team was a better defensive team than ever last season. Yeah. But again, it just comes back to like McKin. And I know he's on a better team in theory.

but when I watch him, he, it's a, it's a, it's not, I should, I shouldn't say it's not a debate, but to me it's just not a long debate. Like when you watch what he's accomplished, what he does, it's not like the guy lacks for offense. I'm sure he's actually outproduced Matthews as well at this point. So Nathan McKinnon leads the league in five on five scoring this season, 25 points in 28 games, 11 goals a second behind Michael Carcone. The legend.

was number four on our list. Yeah. I'm pretty sure he's a left wing, but that's okay. Well, if I had to pick one left winger for the rest of the season, I'm going with Michael Carcone. But yeah, McKinnon,

McKinnon's 5-on-5 production has been better than Austin Matthews and his total, like, points as well. So McKinnon's sixth in the league right now, 39 points and 28 games. Obviously, Austin Matthews leads the league and goals right now, him and Bess are tied with 21. and Matthews became the first player on Tuesday night to hit 20 goals this year. And he's on quite a heater right now, Matthews is, and he's on pace for 66 goals,

which would pass his Leif's record of 60 from a few years ago when he won the Heart Trophy. And there's a very short list of guys who have scored 60 goals twice. So I just think when we're talking about, like, I think Matthews is comfortably in the place of being the most naturally gifted goal score. In the league right now, his release is unbelievable, and he's got a great shot. It's very quick. It's accurate, et cetera. We can talk about that. And people have been talking about that for years is how he gets a shot off.

But I think if you had to pick, like, one player for the whole package and the whole resume, I feel like we're all in agreement that we're going to go with McKinnon for. It's the playoff success. That's probably what we're talking about the rest of the season. Yes. He's done it. He's been through those wars. I thought, I've thought Matthews has been pretty good the last two playoffs, but McKinnon in the playoffs. another level and I can't. To me, I can't overlook him.

Yeah. A big thing for me with McKinnon too, especially this season, we said, this is nothing new. I guess it didn't work out for him last year. The abs again are asking a ton of their superstars, right? It's McKinnon. It's McCar. It's Miko Ranton. It's like they're getting in there getting production from Valerie Natushkin, basically. Other than that, that is. a team that tried to remake its middle six in a lot of in a lot of respects it hasn't taken guys like ross colton and jonathan drew in like they're okay right they're not they're not they're not doing anything you know particularly impressive so you look at what they mean to their teams and what they're asked night after night and that's not it's not to discount you know what the leaves

need for matthews either but i think that mckinin that's another differentiation point for him right They have three productive forwards, basically. The abs, the abs do. And they need all of those points from him, whether it's five on five or otherwise. So yeah, that's why he's my guy too. But he's always up to the task too, right? Like, you need him to be the guy and he is. So Nathan McKinnon number two, Austin Matthews, number three.

Do you guys have anything else you want to say about Matthews? I said he's on pace of score, 66 goals this season. I just found the numbers here. Jonas had a story. It's funny. How Austin Matthews is quietly going towards another historic season. And I always think it's funny. I don't think it's been quiet because everyone's talking about Austin Matthews.

Is it quiet? Nothing's quiet when it's a leafs. Literally, no. Nothing. Oh, I just lost it. Oh, he's 66 goals is his pace right now, which would be the highest single mark since Marley Mu scored 69 goals in 70 games, which is wild in the 1995-96 season. It would be Matthew's second 60 goal season in just eight years.

Only Gretzky, Mike Bossie, Lemieux, Phil Esposito, Brett Hall, Yari Curry, Pavel Burray, and Steve Eiserman have scored 60 goals twice. If he keeps it up, maybe he'll get a little bit of attention, you know. So McDavid, obviously, like, completely wrecks this analogy. But were it not for McDavid, McKinnon Matthews would have real striking contours to a Crosby-Ovechkin debate, would it not? I completely agree. Like, you're looking at the guy who's won, you're looking at the guy who's viewed as, you know, this super complete ultimate competitor guy versus one of the greatest goal scores.

you've ever seen. They're both number one picks. They're not the consecutive year thing. There's a player from Nova Scotia. Right. Huge. And then a player from a country that's continually disrespected by the Canadian elite in the sport.

This number two. It's true. The parallels are strike. All right. Next we bring in Don Cherry for more than that. Start banging the table. Disrespect. Okay.

The next tier. Yeah, let's take a break and we'll go to the next tier of players in our top 10 centers. All right, welcome back. We're going to go through the next tier, and it's four players this time. And this was, I think there was a ton of debate at the bottom, because obviously getting down to 10 centers is tough. And I think there was maybe some debate that we had in the 10 spot. But we'll get to that in a third segment. But this kind of middle four, I think there could be a lot of movement between the four of them,

which is why we've kind of grouped them together as a tier. But as of right now, we have number four, Alexander Barkov, number five, Jack Hughes, number six, Sydney Crosby, number seven, Leon, dry sidel. Do you guys want to start with the debate? Let's start with the debate between Barkov and Hughes. Yeah. Unless somebody wants to say that Crosby or Drysadle should be in the four or five spot.

Well, I would just like to say that like to make that. do it do you want to make the dry siddle or crosbie should be higher so i think i think max and i had barcove and he was in different slots um we had this conversation i think last week too i was kind of bullish on putting the devils and the must watch tv tier because i think jack hues is um outside of connor mac david the most exciting player to watch in the nchel this season um we should say like when he's healthy but obviously when he was hurt he just wasn't in the lineup uh so i was a bit more bullish on having Hughes at number four. But I think it's a fair, it's, it's fair to put Barkov there because he has a bit more, he is the more complete package, I guess we could say.

Max, why did you think that Barkov is ahead of Jack Hughes? I think for me, I agree with you that Hughes is in terms of just sheer excitement and even just overall offense. It's not just flash. There's so much substance to Jack Hughes's game. I think he's going to climb this list in the coming years. It's just, like, we just watch Barcov take a run to the Stanley Cup finals, and he's somehow been better this year. Like, he's come back and he's the, you know, Bergeron vacates this Selky throne, and Barcov's, like, not going to let it sit vacant at all.

He's going to seize it immediately and seems presumptive already at, in mid-December that, like, I don't know how anyone else can take this from him. Yeah. And when you have the level of offense that he is still bringing in addition to that, right? Like it's, Barkov is, Jack Hughes has 33 points of 21 games. It's a crazy rate. Barkov has 28 and 25, but he's also the best defensive forward in the NHL right now. And you have the playoff success and the durability.

And it's just, it just nudges it for me. He's top 30 in the league and points per 60 in all situations, Barkov is like, period. That's when you're mixing in Randos too, like the, God bless Michael Carcone, but he hasn't played all that. much right like so you know yes jack's top 10 there in the in the offensive production is overwhelming with with him at times but this it's crazy that this i don't i don't want to say that this is like a bounce back season for sasha barkoff right because it's it's not like he's always in this neighborhood when it comes to production and all that but kind of feels that way honestly

like there were moments last season where you're like in where it gets lost in the shelf a little bit, maybe, because Matthew Kachuk's there. I think that's another, another big reason to be really, uh, really amped on, on what Barkov's done this year. Because Kachuk has, you know, the goal scoring hasn't been there. Other stuff has, but he can't, can't buy a goal on and on. So they do need that extra level of, uh, of production, I think, I think from Barkoff. So, man, it is, it is tough.

I, I, I hate voting against Jackie. for anything like this, honestly, right? But I'm going to side with Max. Like, I will concede to Max, I should say. Wow. Wow. What? That's, he swung you over. No, I said I will concede to Matt.

I still, like, because of the defensive side of the game, like, I will concede, as I said, like, because the whole package is there. but if I had to pick based on skill, then I'm going with Jack Hughes. I've, and you can't give. I will say, like, if we had to pick, like, who we want for the rest of the season and into the playoffs, then, yeah, we, you kind of get, give Barkov the edge because out of those two guys, only one of them made it to the Cup final and last. I don't.

I don't. I'm, I think I give, I give Barkov, I think, a little bit less credit than maybe you'd think for, for what the Panthers did last. year because the dude was eaten toughs absolutely god bless him like he's playing he's playing against first lines uh night in night out the production wasn't there like he he he was not the the the point of production dipped significantly and that it's is it unfair is it unrealistic maybe but like if you're at this level if you're if we're patrice bergeron you know Sydney Crosby a guy like guys like that

the point production comes to. And he, I, I would have, 16 points. I would have, you're acting like he had two. I don't feel like there was any series that that guy asserted is willing. I don't. It was the Cichick. That's because everyone was talking about Matthew Cichuk.

Everyone was talking about Matthew Cichuk, because Matthew Cichuk was, was hands down the most impactful player on that team series after series. Like I, I think, look, we've seen this from successful teams, from consistently successful teams that have a deep,

well of high-end forwards. And I know this always comes back to the Pittsburgh Penguins for me, but whatever. Tough Nuggets. That's the way it goes. That's a team that I've watched and covered for a long time. You need to have a few different, you need to have, but when the penguins were at their best, you knew that there'd be Crosby series and that there'd be Malkin series. And in 2009, there was a Jordan Stahl series where those guys can pass the baton back to the, and forth and rely on each other to carry the offensive point production load at a time when maybe and give the other guys a rest. That's something successful teams do it.

We saw it from the wings year after year on and on and on and on. And I think that that is part of what the Panthers were missing last year was for that guy who's an elite no-brainer top 10, you know, across the board 1C, Air to Patrice Bergeron, blah, blah, blah, all these things, very true. But I want to see that dude have 12 points in a six game series. I do. Like, that's something I want from him moving forward. I don't know.

I think you're being a little bit harsh on. Well, so here's saying he's the fourth, and he's the fourth best center in the league. Right. But so how can you say, how can you say all that? How can you say all that and think he's the fourth best? And why are we not putting Hughes at four? There's more, there's more, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not,

everything else that he's done because he hasn't done it. I'm just, I'm just saying that that's like, to me, that's like the dividing line between him and who though, Jack Hughes, who has not been to the cuff on? I think that's,

I think that's the thing that makes him, that would make him number four with a bullet. I don't know. I think just because he's not someone who's in the spotlight as much as Matthew Kuchuk doesn't mean that he's not as valuable to that Panthers team. Max, what I think?

Here's, here's maybe a wrinkle into this, right? So one of the thoughts I had when I was deciding to argue for Barkov at 4 above Hughes was if I'm putting Barkov there, why am I not putting Crosby there? And if at that point, especially to Sean's point, I'm going looking at what Sidney Crosby did in last year's playoffs 10 points in six games, right? Like you could you could make a case here that if Crosby and Barkoff shouldn't be separated and that maybe even Crosby should be four. I'm not ready to make that case right now. So are Crosby and dry sidel too low?

that's the question. I mean, these rankings, like this, I think I, but I think that's why we put these, this is the tier of four, right?

Because I think they're also interchangeable. Does, does anybody think that Crosby should be in the four or five spot? I could be convinced. Well, I, I like them the way they are, but I'm just saying like,

these are, these are the things that I had internally going on. At the beginning, when you asked about like, you know, reservations or kind of qualifiers or like, Leon Drysidel is seven for us. I routinely talk.

about him as one of the 10 best players in the league. Totally. And I think you can be a top 10 player in the league at seven, right? Like centers tend to be the best. But like you could make an argument to me that if I'm going to talk about him that way, I better have the guts to rank him four or five among centers too, right? Like it's it's just to me when I've watched Barkov this year and to see, I think part of it is the playoff factor. We're talking about the rest of the season. You know how far this guy's gone on the playoffs. But you can make those points for Crosby. And even to an extent dry-sidal at this point, too.

Drysiddle really outstanding. Yeah. Right. So it is really hard to parse. And if anything, kind of what I'm wondering is, do I want to drop Jack, which seems insane with how good Jack is and might just be a top three guy in my heart ballot by the end of the season. I don't know.

It's crazy. Sidney Crosby is a major component of a power play that may well keep his team I can't talk about the Penguins Power Play again today. We're not going. I'm not, that's it. That's, that's all I want to say about it. But like,

he deserves some of the blame. Like I, and whatever, like five on five, he's a sublime player still, right? Like the, the production is,

is awesome. But he wears some of, like, we sit here, we, we, we dunk on this power play every week because it, we should.

It's funny. They suck. It's, it's, and it's, and it's, and it's, and it's,

you know, entertaining to, to rip on, but like, he's part of it. So, like, that's a sort of thing where you're like,

also like... Crosby's also fifth in the league in five-on-five points right now. And second, when we're looking at natural center. So I guess Sam Reinhart is listed as a center.

We know he can play up the middle, but he's been playing on the right wing with Barkoff lately. And Reinhart's numbers are excellent. but I don't think we wouldn't have Sam Ryan Hard on our top 10 right now anyways so I've kind of disqualified him from that list so only McKinnon has more five and five points at Cindy Crosby so I do think that like we could have some shuffling here in the four five six seven slot totally I like him how we have my point is just like it's hard

yeah I know this is this is this is where it gets hard for me this tier I agree with you Max I inherently have a hard time having dry cycle as the seventh best center when I have moments of being like, I feel like dry settle might be the second best player in the world. Yeah. Like I have, I mean last year in the playoffs, I felt like this guy's a brick and machine. Like, why don't we talk about him enough? I think he's the only guy in this group that we still have that thought about. Why don't, of what? Why don't we talk about this guy now?

Is this guy the second best player in the world? Oh, yeah. I've never, I've never thought. about Alexander Barkov. I don't think it about Sydney Crosby anymore. I don't think about Sydney Crosby anymore. And like, I haven't quite gotten there yet with Jack.

Yeah. Even though we were talking about how he was like the Hart Trophy Frontrunner before he got injured. You think about it. There are not infrequent debates. Correct me if I'm wrong in Canada, Haley, between who's better dry settler Matthews?

Not infrequently, right? I feel like I see that pop up. Is that fair or am I crazy? I don't know. I might not be paying attention. Sean, am I crazy here? Have you seen these?

Or am I? This doesn't live in Canada. No, I know, but he's exposed to hockey. I don't know. I think that's been one of those things that's, I feel like he's,

at points in the last three years, he's been of a type with Matthews and McKinnon. And I feel like for whatever reason, where it's like, he's in 1A, right? where it's like McDavid by himself, but then at some point I feel like that we've shifted

and taken him out of the Matthews and the Matthews in McKinnon group. I think we should move dry saddle up. Where? Over who? Do we flip him in Hughes? Or move Crosby to seven, Hughes to six, dry saddle to five?

This is a project Hughes space. I enjoy watching him play hockey. So we keep it? If he stays healthy, that dude is going to score at a 110 point. Don't convince me. I had him at 4. You guys are confusing me. You know what?

I'm not saying, I'm not saying that I want to raise dry cycle. I'm just saying, I think it's interesting that the number seven guy in this tier is the, is the dude who's still at times. But which is why I'm saying we should probably raise. But he's also the only two C on this list. We're asking the question. Who, would Florida trade Barkov for Drysidal for this season? Like if they're both pending free agents.

I don't think they can. Oh. I don't think they could. Would you trade Alexander Barkov for, I actually want to hear from people with us. Yeah. Hit us in the comment section. Comments, Twitter, whatever. If you're Florida, do you trade Barkoff for Drysidal?

Rest of season, both pending free agents. And this is the scenario. In the cap, whatever. But, whatever. Edmonton. might because Edmonton, well, I guess now they're hot, but like they needed a shakeup, right? Like, you could have convinced me that. And that to me- Chris Nowblocks the best coach that's ever walk, walk, God's green earth. Clearly, that's what's changed. Does New Jersey trade Jack for

dry-sail? No. Rest of season, both free agents. Not not including the youth factor. Hey, this was good. Good job, Max. Okay. I think we like our four tiers then, our second tier. Yeah? Yeah. Does I don't have anything to say about either of these four people? people. I feel like the debate covered it. We like them all a lot. Yeah, we love. We love them all. So great. Yeah. This is awesome. It's, you know what? Here's what I'll say about Crosby, especially moving forward for the rest of the season. That dude has done so much heavy lifting over the last couple years for them that like they should be worried about impending a wall because he's old. Why are you putting this kind of energy into the universe? I'm just saying,

I'm just saying, Alex Ovechkin may have may have hit the skids here. It happens. Guys get old quick. Stop it. Just saying. But you're talking about, no. The Pittsburgh Penguins will have only themselves to blame. And here we all thought that they grabbed the perfect secondary pieces to make that team great again. For one year.

And if the power play doesn't work, it all blows up. I don't want to talk about the Penguins powerplay anymore. Let's go to break. and we have three more centers to talk about. And I think this will be an interesting debate as well because obviously we left a ton of people off the board. We'll be right back. All right, so we have three players left in our top ten list.

And we're going to tease the final player a little bit. So let's go eight nine here. Number eight, I think quite comfortably, we have Elias Pedersen. And then number nine, we have Jack Eichel. thoughts? Yeah. These two are both.

Yeah, I have some thoughts. Well, we talked about the playoff track records a lot of these guys, and Jack Eichael for a long time was a guy who maybe gets left off this list, partly as a result of that. He's now won a Stanley Cup as number one center. He honestly, I don't know how much of this is a product of Vegas and the overall defensive environment there, but the underlying numbers for him defensively. Pretty interesting.

To me, I felt like grouping these two together was only fair. I did lean Pedersen, but I think you can make a case here for Jack Eichl. It's just the offense from Alias Petterson this year. And this is true of a few Vancouver players, again, which points to environment questions, is overwhelming. And I think he's reaching this point where I think he's just undeniable. These guys, to me, were both, I couldn't imagine this list without either of them. Mm-hmm. Sean.

Pederson in the first month of the season was part candidate, let's say. Yep. I'm going to pop up on some ballots. I think he's dipped a bit over the last, you know, month or so, let's say. It's the even strength point production, like hasn't really been there.

Like, for, when you're talking about an MVP candidate. Like that's not to say that's been terrible, but I think he needs to get back on track, uh, from, from a point production standpoint. As, you know, the shooting percentage is not, is normalized as the on ice shooting percentages as normalized the productions tailed off a bit too. But that's okay. He's still still been unbelievable and, uh, power play points count two, which is something I feel like we could all probably, uh, yeah, could we all need to be reminded of that at times. Because we all, we love, we love five on five. stats because that's where the majority of the games played but power play production matters too so credit to Pedersen there I think he's been unbelievable so I'm I'm comfortable with him there but like you know I think if in the first I'll say this in the first month of the season that dude looked a tier above where we have him right now right like he was he was unbelievable and I think I think he's declined just a bit over the last little bit to where he's at eight instead of you know five or

whatever there were things that we just everyone kind of assume we going to regress for the Canucks after they have the hot start to the season. But we've had this conversation on the show multiple times. I don't think anybody has suggested that they're going to regress to the point of missing the playoffs or being bad. And that's the same thing with Elias Pedersen. It just went from being the fifth best center in the league to the eighth. And this is still elite company. You know, he's in a tier with Eichel who won the Stanley Cup last year. These are all elite centers, obviously. It's only time. And we, we should say, you know, I pulled this up on evolving hockey.

Pedersen and Eichl both have the same amount of five on five points a season, which is 17. And Pedersen has two more five on five goals, which is 10. Eichael has eight. So I think having them in the same tier makes a lot of sense. Dom's player cards are are pretty interesting when you compare these two together. He has Pedersen just above Eichel when you put them in a ranking,

and he has McDavid Drysidal Pedersen Eichel is the top. four centers in the Pacific Division. I don't think there's any debate there. Pedersen is a little bit above Eichl in terms of offensive rating, in terms of offensive actual production and play driving. But he's a little bit worse than Eichael in the defensive rating. So Pedersen's a plus 17 offense minus two defense, and Ikel is a plus 14 offense plus one defense.

So that kind of puts them into the same net rating ground. So I think we're okay. how much Vegas is responsible for that, right? Like the team is defensively is so much better. And I think that that, as much as we try and isolate, I do think models still probably don't capture the full extent that being on like a good defensive team or even just a great team is going to boost all these numbers.

Yeah, totally. Okay. Do we want to get to number 10? I'm ready. Okay. Let's go. So this was, I guess, a bit of a debate. number 10 is it's Bradent Point.

Is it? Can you hear the screams from Ottawa? So I won't name names, but there was a debate between Tim Stutzla at 10 and Bradent Point at 10. At the moment, we've landed on Braden Point at 10. And I feel like it's going to stay there. Stutzla just missed the cut. we can get to some of the other ones who didn't miss the cut, but this is the 10-11 kind of right now.

Max Boltman, why is Braden Point the 10th best center in the National Hockey League? And why do you hate the Ottawa Senators? I adore Tim Stutzel. And I think if this is like an overall, if this had been like an overall forward looking, who are you building around for the next, however long Tim Stutzel is going to be there?

If we do this list in two years, I think Tim Stutz is going to be there. To me right now, there's a level of provenness with Braden Point. Obviously, playoff wise, it's a huge factor that I brought up a few times. I also think the guy scored 50 goals last year. And it was the quietest goal season. That was like a quiet fit. Like Austin Matthews was quietly putting together a 60 goal season. No, no. Braden point scored 50 and people were like, oh. Right. 100%. And so to me, I just can't take Braden point out of this yet as good as I think Tim. So it's already as great as I think he's going to be.

he might be a 100 point player as soon as this year. But what fascinated me as we're going through this debate, and Sean, I want your input on this is like, every impulse I have says that Braden Point is a better defensive player than Tim Stutzel. And that's part and parcel to what I talked about with the playoffs and why I think rest of season I'm giving this to Braden Point. You pointed out that the underlying numbers here maybe tell a different story there.

And I want to know how much you're buying that. How much should other people buy that? is Tim Stutzler, like, I don't actually remember where you fell on Stutzel versus Point going to this rating. I'm still, I, you mentioned the world's quietest 50 goal season in 22, 3 for point. I think that's like, that looms so large for me. Now, not just because he was great last year, because Tim Stutzel was great too. Like, it's not a matter. Like, we're not going to sit here and talk about who was better last.

season to last season was a reminder of how great Braden Point can be just overall because he was hurt the year before he was dealing with something and that's an important reminder when we're thinking about these guys just generally is that players get hurt and sometimes when guys see down ticks in production it's because they're dealing with something throughout throughout the course of a season and I think that gets lost in the shuffle sometimes and it certainly was with Braden Point because Some of the, there was like, you know, a part of the dialogue, I think, with him headed into last year was like, well, okay, we're like, where, where are we on him? Like, is he, is he, is he maybe not on the down swing, but where does he fit in the hierarchy of, you know, on lists like this or within, within the lightning system or whatever? It comes out and lays waste to all that sort of stuff.

The dude is just unbelievable, beginning to end. So we know that the high end is still there. The playoff production is undeniable. He's a prime, a prime postseason player of this generation, Praden Point is. And to me, that's like, that's the overriding factor. Is if I want one of these dudes, one of these two guys on my team for the rest of 23, 24, it's him.

And it's been, and it's because of, again, high-end production last year combined with playoff resume. Like, I'll take that. God bless Tim Stutzelottsler. Would I take Tim Sletta for the next seven years rather than the next seven months? Yes, but it's not what we're doing. I mean, we can also just look at the, like, basic production, too. Tim Stutzler has 26 points and 23 games. He only has six goals this season.

He had a slow start to the season. He had three goals in the first five weeks. little six weeks of the year. Braden point, and Tim Stutz was on pace for a worse, and I'm sure he'll heat up, but he's on pace for 21 goals and 72 points a season. Brayden points already, Braden Point and Austin Matthews are the same amount of points of season, 32.

So, like, we don't have to Galaxy Brain it this much. Braden Point is scoring more than Tim Stisla this season. And I do think some of the underlines, as you mentioned Max, Timstethl's defensive net rating on Dom's model is zero right now, and Braden points is negative five. But as to your point, to your point, Max, is I think if we didn't look at that,

we didn't look at the model, we didn't look at, you know, underlying numbers, and we just looked at Braden Point in Timsticell, which center are we taking for like a D zone base off, based on their history? Who do we want in the defensive zone? and with a minute left in the game is it Braden Point or Tim Stutzler

net rating to hell it's it's Braden Point for me it's point yeah and also a lot of that you know this you could say this about both players I suppose but the Lightning as a team I don't I'm not saying stick a fork in them or anything

but that that is a poor defensive team right now across the board like how much does that count how like what does that do to to points, you know, individual defensive match. Sure. You know, it's a chicken or the egg scenario, right?

Are they bad defensively? Because part and parcel, you know, partially because of Braden Point. Like, what's, what's the cause and what's the correlation? But, you know, we got to consider that. Like, that's a team that's in some degree of. It's the environment conversation we've been having with some of these players too, right? And obviously the environment with the Sends, the vibes have not been great. I think with Tampa, it starts all out of the starts with the demon.

Like, Hedman and Surgachev particularly have been, have been atrocious. And I think that there's a little bit of a waterfall effect there that maybe there isn't for Stutzla. Totally. So I feel like we agree that it's Braden Point with the caveat that nobody hates Tim Stutzla. We think he's great. and he's going to be on this list, if not now. Soon. Very soon.

When? Soon. I went back and pulled up because I had accidentally closed. I had the stats from the first month of season because Elias Patterson was so good. So from the start of the year to like November 15th. So that's about five weeks into the season, give or take, 26 points and 16 games for Lee's Patterson. Sick.

he was unreal and still like getting benched by Rick Tocket for like turning the puck over and stuff like hat trick hat trick goal costs the puck up like you're sitting down for a few minutes so you know what his lack of his his his down ticking in production has been noticed by my fantasy output ah I'll just I'll say that much I'm playing Myrtle this week and it's really annoying just because it's Myrtle, just in general. He has one of them, Matthews. He has every leaf player. He even drafted Rasmus Sandin. He's got leaves. He's got X-Leafs.

He drafted Ilya Sampsonov. Yeah, but he's got Matthews and Nylander. Nylander, yeah. Yeah, he drafted Mikhail. You know what my takeaway from, especially the back half of this list was, is there's so many guys who, when I'm just kind of talking about players, I'll just think of the comfortable top 15 center. There is just is no such thing outside of basically these names, because I look at the names that we don't have here. Ansay Kopitar didn't make this list. That's crazy.

And yet I've stand by it, right? Tim Stutzlow, obviously, Rope Hens, you know, Dylan Larkin and Sebastian Aho are guys that I often think of as like, yeah, top 15 centers. Like, I mean, at this point, we're talking about them as literally around 14, 15, if there's not some, I mean, Rope hints might be above. The next, the next five would be a difficult debate, I think, Max. Yeah. And I think after that, honestly, going back to the tears conversations that we've had over the years, that's where it really gets flunged. Page, where do you be? We don't have anybody on the New York Rangers. Stelky candidate, J.T. Miller.

J.T. Miller. Only T. Chuchrov has more points in J.T. Miller in the NHL right now. I say Zabanajad even We don't have anyone No Trocheck knows Zabandad Nobody from the Rangers Like Evgen McHen Yeah

Evgeny Malkin Is Mr. 99 Mr. 11 Finally he's He misses out on a list That he doesn't actually deserve to be on He's not a top 10 center anymore No John Tavares

But I don't think he's a top 10 center In the NHL right now He does have more points and goals in Tim Stittsler right now. Yeah, no, Rupa Hince, no Boerbat. I can't say that man's name. No, Barzell.

Boho. Boer Wavat. No, Mark Schifley, no Robert Thomas. And no, Connor Bedard. No, Connor Bedard. I'm sorry. That's the fun one. Where is he today?

Maybe play a few more games. 25, to 25. Yeah. Somewhere in there. But getting that list of players, how many people did we just name there? Because I had this on our lineup list. 10 to 12.

Oh, God. I can't count fast, guys. We would need to dwindle that down to the next five, and I think that'd be hard. That'd be a whole other episode. Let's do this again next week. Cut off is always hard. Like, like you have. Because I got more to say about the Jonas brothers.

I, you know what? I think I'm tapped out on them. We talked far too long about them. I don't think anybody, this was a good episode. I don't think anybody listened to it because they were like, oh, my God. This is too much. I don't get that chart anymore in my metrics, but it used to be like you could see where the listenership dropped on. It would be very funny to sit on this episode.

It's at two minutes because we lose half the audience. Whatever. Dear listeners, whatever amount of Jonas Brothers stuff you heard at the top of the It was less than what we talked about originally because some of it has probably been cut. Probably for the best. Tack on another five minutes or so. I think we did good work here today, guys. Yeah, I feel comfortable and confident and safe with our list.

And yeah, all those players we just named on the Who Missed the Cut List, we had 19 more players. It's never easy. So. We could make this list 50. and we'd still have arguments over 50 through 59. Chandler Stevenson doesn't get enough. Chandler Stevenson. I drafted him in fantasy and I dropped him swiftly.

That dude has been one of the most underrated, underpaid players in the league for years. And he is picking a terrible time to go cold because he is in his walk year and he has not produced. Yeah, I dropped him for coal. Pofetti and then I beat Max. I think that's how I beat Max in fantasy by like half a point by sweet boy, Cole Prafetti. Love to see it. Yeah.

Did you change your team name yet? Is it Haley's sweet boys? I should my sweet kings. Heyley's sweet kings. Hey, Lee's sweet kings. No, my team name is still just like what yeah, who sports spits out. So it's just Haley's terrific team. I'm going to lose to Shana this week.

I'm projected to win, but I already know that it's Shana. I'm going to lose. Yeah, I beat Don. By the way, I do want everyone out there to know how terrible it is to play in a fantasy league with Dom and Shana, who are like actually, like, it's not fair. But it's a different level to us. No, it's not fair. How do they know how to pick up obscure random man?

Shana, Shana traded me. Shana and I made a trade this year. And I traded her someone. And then the player that she traded me had like no points for like three weeks. So I dropped them. and she picked him up and now he's good again. It's just, I mean, that's probably on me, but like, terrible. She fleeced you.

She fleeced me. Oh, that's, yeah, that's on you. I'm sorry. It was Dawson Mercer. Oh, Max. I know. I love Dawson Mercer, but he was doing nothing. Not as much as she did.

She was obviously going to pick him back up. Yeah. But yeah, our Fantasy League, if people care, there's like 16 of us. And I think nine of us are tied for six right now. everyone's just four and five. Extreme mediocrity. You guys want to collude? Turn the podcast off.

Do you want to collude? I think we should. Okay. Yeah. I said to Sean, I actually said to Sean one day, because I was already winning. I was like,

do you want me to give you Radco Goodyst for like a few days? And you could send him back. He like needed a D for the weekend. I was like, I'm good, junior. He's on a bench. So I don't know, Max, let me know.

We can send people back before. Rock Messers carrying me right now. Yeah. It's a keeper league. That's the only thing is it's a keeper league. Yeah. And I took. I'm toast because Kyle Conner's hurt for six to eight weeks.

Well, then you just trade me. You're a good players. That'll be awesome. MVP Patterson to come back, baby. Yeah. But there we go. That was our top 10 list and that was a little corner, those fantasy hockey corner.

Just to recap, we have number one, Connor McDavid, number two, Nathan McKinnon, number three, Austin, Matthews, number four, Sasha Barkoff, number five, Jack Hughes, number six, Sydney Crosby, number seven, Leon Drysidle, number eight, Aalias Pedersen, number nine, Jack Eichel, and 10, Braden Point, Tim Stitzla. Just missed the cut, and yeah, we gave a shout out to J.T. Miller. Aho missed the cut, he sure missed the cut, no Bader, no Reinhardt, no Reinhardt,

no Tage Thompson, etc, etc. I do think we should, Andre Kopitar is not on this list, as we mentioned, but we've got to give that man some respect. I know. Always. Always. He's amazing. He's respected.

He's an ageless wonder. He's not respected. You don't, you don't respect. I personally, yes. I personally don't respect the way that you should. On Jacobo, but he has not lost a step, says producer Jeff. And he hasn't. Anyways, that's the end of the show.

Thanks, everyone for listening. Let us know in the comments. if you thought this was stupid. No? Because I kind of like doing deep dives. I'm afraid to call us the worst day show. Yeah, it's the worst day show. Worst day dumbasses or add it again.

But I think having deep dives is kind of fun and different. Let us know in the comments if you like that format. if there's any deep dives that you want us to dive deep on and answer the question from max would you trade what was the question would you trade what was the question rest of season if both were pending ufas barcough for dry settle i'd love that was the one let us know would you do that answer the question in the comments we're waiting and just want to remind everyone you can subscribe to the athletic n hl's youtube channel at youtube dot com slash act. There's two symbols there. The athletic hockey show. Uh, our wonderful, well,

I tried to say something nice about Danielle and my, I just froze up like into it. Our wonderful producer Danielle, uh, works hard to put up good, uh, shorts and clips on YouTube. So make sure you subscribe and watch what she puts out there. Um, the athletic hockey show returns Friday with the prospect series with Max Bultman again, Corey Promin. Scott Wheeler and Chris Peters again? I don't know if we have everyone on this week. We're at USA Camp. We'll have some combination of those guys, though, for sure. Holy heck. CP, he's back.

I think CP's coming. This is news to Mac, so I bet it's going to be a great show. I love it. Thanks, everyone for listening this week, and we'll be back next week. I guess it's our last episode before Christmas. American Christmas. It's Canadian Christmas was today actually. Here we go.

Merry Christmas. Thanks, everyone. We'll see you next week.