Let's open the season with a meeting of the Atlantic division GM's (stolen from Reddit):
[video=youtube_share;tB4I7UtJ1zs]https://youtu.be/tB4I7UtJ1zs[/video]
Just for shits and giggles, here's my rank for noteworthy centres in the Atlantic. I'm not ranking by P1/60, but I'll include it in brackets because I think it correlates as well as any single number does to 5 on 5 offensive performance. There is some strength of linemates baked into that though, and I'm only using a one year sample. I'll also separate into what I see the tiers being.
The "Matthews Tier".
Matthews (2.6)
He's legitimately all by himself here. There's only 3 centres in the league to compare him to, maybe 4 if Mackinnon repeats his 17/18 season. None of them are in this division thank ****.
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Very Good #1 centres
Barkov (1.4)
Stamkos (1.9)
Bergeron (1.7)
Tavares (1.6)
Point (1.9)
The Atlantic is very deep up the middle. This whole group probably slots into the top 12-15 in the NHL. To have almost half of the top 12 out of one division is impressive, and aggravating.
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Okay #1 centres
Eichel (1.7)
Call me a hater, I don't give a ****. He's over rated by the media, period. With that said, there's nothing wrong with being a top 20ish centre at his age.
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Fringe #1 centres
Kadri (1.4)
Duchene (1.7)
Both should probably make any top 30 list
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Good 2nd Line C
Krejci (1.6)
Larkin (1.5)
Trochek (1.1)
I don't think that needs a lot of elaboration
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Some thoughts:
- Yeah, I have Barkov ranked really high despite pedestrian (by the standard of this tier of players) primary offensive numbers. He plays a ton, and in heavy matchups and the puck goes the right way when he's on the ice. Probably the hardest centre on that list to play against, and yeah that includes Bergeron. Basically, he's the new Bergeron, except he's the 6'3 220 version.
- Matthews is though, the best centre in the division and it's not really that close
- I don't even know if Stamkos is actually a centre anymore, if JT Miller is actually the full time guy there, he barely makes this list
- Eichel is over rated by the media. He's kind of mentioned in the same breath as Matthews and he's not even remotely close. With that said, he's an interesting study in interpreting these statistics. I see a good argument for him being a bit under rated here offensively as he has played with very meh talent. On the other hand, his Relative stats flatter him because he plays on such a horseshit team.
- Bergeron isn't getting "carried" offensively by Pastrchand, but there's little doubt they're inflating his offensive numbers. Still a really good centre though.
- I think Point is going to be in the argument for 2nd on this list by the end of the year. There's a good argument for having him higher now, but I get that him doing it again is a key piece of information here.