Originally Posted by 19Yzerman19
^Yes, he scores a lot. Are you seriously saying that you would hesitate for a second if someone asked you "who would you rather have playing for you tonight, Spezza or Stamkos?" Come on, no one bats an eye before answering that. Same goes for Giroux or Tavares. But the point is that he's not in the conversation but he's still a good #1C. He might be in the top 10 among centres in the league. That's a good #1, just as a top 10 goalie is a good #1.
Just expanding, I think you have certain guys who are clearly #1 C's.
Crosby, Malkin, Stamkos, Toews, Sedin, Getzlaf, EStaal, Datsyuk, Kopitar, Giroux, Spezza, Tavares, Backstrom, Thornton, Bergeron make up 15 who are clearly within the top 30 centers in the league. Those guys are good #1 centers - they're not only among the 30 best, they're in the top half of the 30 best.
Then you have a debate as to who the next 15 are. Matt Duchene, Mikko Koivu, David Kreijci, Logan Couture, David Backes, Ryan Kesler, Derek Stepan, Tomas Plekanec, RNH, Mike Richards, Tyler Seguin, Joe Pavelski, Mike Ribeiro, Jordan Staal, Brad Richards.
Some of those guys aren't very good as #1 centres, just like some goalies aren't very good #1 goalies. Some of them are indeed on the borderline of not being #1 Centres and you can argue that another guy should take someone's place on the list - maybe Kadri or Lecavalier or Ganger is better than Richards or Plekanec. Same thing goes with goalies, once you get down to 22-30, you're into guys who are debatable as to whether they're #1s or if someone else should supplant them. A guy like Ribeiro is basically the Ondrej Pavelec of centres - yeah, he's a #1, he's just not very good as a #1 and Phoenix would prefer it had someone else in that role, just as Winnipeg would be better off if it had Jimmy Howard between the pipes instead.
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