Quote:
Originally Posted by Flames Draft Watcher
Could mean that philosophically the Leafs could want to pair a huge centre in Brown with an average to below averaged sized one in Willy Nylander. It's hard to win in this league without having some size at top two line centre position.
I think Brown could go surprisingly high but as I said I think it'll be to a team with mediocre centre depth who really covets and needs size and skill at centre. The Flames aren't small at centre and already possess strong depth at that position and thus I don't think they'd covet him as much as another team might.
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Do the Flames have strong depth at the position, though? I like Bennett, and Monahan, and Jankowski, and Backlund. But can you realistically project any of them as a top ~15 center in the league? I can't (Bennett maybe). So if we have a chance to add another center it's just another bullet in the chamber towards enviable center depth. Our center depth is satisfactory but not enviable unless everything goes right. San Jose's Center Depth (Thornton/Couture/Marleau/Pavelski/Hertl) is enviable. Pittsburgh's Center Depth (Crosby/Malkin/Bonino/Cullen/Fehr) is pretty enviable. Dallas' Center Depth (Spezza/Benn/Seguin/Eakin/Faksa/Fiddler) is looking pretty enviable (even Sharp is a natural center). God damn Edmonton's center depth (McDavid/Matthews/Draisaitl/Nugent-Hopkins) looks like it will be enviable.
if Brown has any kind of top 6 potential, his skillset should not be ignored just because he plays a position we drafted three years in a row. that obviously applies to Matthews and Dubois and Rubtsov too for me. Being a natural winger is almost unneccessary for me.