Quote:
Originally Posted by stemit14
I think it’s a similar case league wide. If you look at lists of the top prospects across the NHL, centers are few and far between. Wingers and defencemen currentky dominate most lists. Ritchie and Helenius are usually the top center prospects on these lists and I haven’t seen one where either of them crack the top 10. In fact, most lists only have one of them cracking the top 20. I haven’t looked recently but I’m pretty sure only 4 or 5 of the top 50 prospects on Wheeler’s list were centers.
Not sure exactly why this is the case or if this is pretty common but I’m guessing there could be a few reasons.
1. I imagine any time a player is an A-level prospect and is a center, they don’t stay a prospect for long (i.e. they become an NHL player within months of being drafted). Celebrini, Bedard, Fantilli, Smith and Carlsson didn’t spend much time being prospects after getting drafted.
2. Some recent drafts have been thin at centre outside the top 5. Last year’s draft in particular was heavy on defence and wingers.
I also wonder if the flames have applied the philosophy of “best player available” very strictly when drafting over the last few years. That could mean if they are on the clock and they have a winger available that they score as an 87/100 and a center available that they score as an 84/100, they will still take the winger. I only say that because it’s no secret that they need centers and they have needed them in the system for years but have still taken wingers when other center prospects are available. This isn’t a criticism, just an observation/speculation - I think they have drafted really well over the last few years. And the fact that there are very few centers in the list of top NHL prospects maybe shows that they have made the right choice in a lot of cases.
I’ll also add that I think the Flames saw the potential (and still see the potential) for Honzek to play center. They looked at his potential to be a similar player to Rantanen if he reached his highest ceiling. Honzek’s development was really derailed by missing most of his D+1 season with injury. You can’t plan for those kind of things. Who knows where he would be if that had not happened. He can still recover and reach his potential as an NHLer but it will likely take longer to do so.
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It’s a good point you bring up on Honzek. IIRC right after that pick was made Stienberg said from the draft that Rantinen was the player/prototype they saw. That talk has died down and I wonder if the Flames don’t want to put undue pressure on him. Also, obviously, performance and injuries since the draft have put a damper on this sort of talk.