Quote:
Originally Posted by Flames Draft Watcher
Wingers are less valuable than centres in general. Centres have a greater impact on the game in many areas. Centres take face-offs, most wingers don't. Centres have responsibilities down low, near the net in their own zone to cover the opponent's 3rd forward. Wingers have a much easier time covering the opposition defensemen. Playmaking centres can make average wingers great (See Lemieux-Rob Brown, see Crosby-Dupuis, etc). Goal scoring wingers often are meh without a playmaking centre to set them up.
Where have the best goal scoring wingers of the past 10-15 years led their teams? Nowhere for the most part. Where have the best 1-2 centre men duos in the league led their teams in the past 10-15 years? Stanley Cups.
As for valuation it must be understood that players who score points will get paid. But scoring the most points does not necessarily make you the most valuable or impactful player for team success.
Johnny scores the most points on the Flames but centre is the more important and impactful position. That's why this negotiation is a tough one. Johnny deserves to be paid huge for putting up huge points. But it's dangerous to pay wingers huge money as you can rarely build a cup winning team with a winger as your most important and most highly paid player.
We all love Johnny. We all know how vital he is to the team. But paying him 8+ million may impact our ability to keep Bennett, Tkachuk, etc. So for the team to have success they really need to have Johnny on as cheap a deal as possible. If you overpay on wingers you can't afford your centres and defensemen and centre/defense are more important to team success.
|
You're not wrong but
being a centre and
excelling as a centre are different things. I'm not convinced Monahan as of now excels as a centre. Obviously everyone here has hope that he'll excel at the position in the future, but Gaudreau excels at his position at present.
Likewise I am not convinced Tyler Seguin is more valuable than Jamie Benn - sure he puts up numbers but he does not excel at his centre responsibilities. I even think Spezza handles those better than Seguin does. Or for that matter, age aside, I never thought Steven Stamkos was more valuable than Martin St. Louis.
You don't want to build around wingers but if your best winger is better at being a winger than your best centre is at being a centre then it is what it is. You can't just inflate the centre's value for the sole reason of being a centre.