Quote:
Originally Posted by FanningTheFlames
I have a huge soft spot for Jankowski, but I don't know how Burke is going to view a soft 6'5" centre. He's neither small nor "beef". How does he find a niche?
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Well as long as he fills out I think he counts as beef for Burke. Even not so physical centres like Joe Thornton are incredibly hard to deal with in the offensive zone because of their size and reach which gives them the ability to hold onto the puck more easily than a smaller player. A guy like Thornton makes room for his wingers and gives the team time to set up passes.
Jankowksi if he fully develops can be that type of big, rangy centre with skill who can hold onto the puck in the offensive zone until he can make a good play. I think Burke is fine with that.
I think there is a huge misunderstanding here. Burke isn't saying every single player must be truculent or huge. But there has to be a few sprinkled in and ideally you'd love to have big, skilled players over small, skilled players if everything else is equal.
So Burke isn't necessarily going to hate big guys who aren't truculent because they could still be adding size, strength and skill. And big centres are going to help our smaller wingers like Hudler, Baertschi and Gaudreau. Monahan is brilliant and I like having a guy like Jankowski in the pipeline developing. Having too many good centres is a problem you'd like to have.