Number One Center vs. Number One Defenseman

[GMRwings1983 8,794]

So let me get this straight, all the "we'll never win with Howard, he's not good enough" (before Mrazek emerged) was code for "he is good enough, what really need is better skaters"

Is that what you're saying?

What's the surprise? Yes, the top priority is building a great team in front of your goalie. I think Chicago could make deep runs in the playoffs with a Howard these last few years. Crawford isn't special. They score tons of goals.

However, if you can't build a great team, you better get a goalie that can stand on his head in the postseason and steal games. Not an average goalie. Howard is an average goalie. I haven't seen him steal games consistently in the postseason. Mrazek stole playoff games for us last season.

So no, Howard isn't good enough (with this roster). Nobody said we can win the Cup if only Howard played better. This defense has been s*** the last few seasons. Everyone knows that.

[Helmethead 235]

#jimmyvezina

[number9 3,297]

What's the surprise? Yes, the top priority is building a great team in front of your goalie. I think Chicago could make deep runs in the playoffs with a Howard these last few years. Crawford isn't special. They score tons of goals.

However, if you can't build a great team, you better get a goalie that can stand on his head in the postseason and steal games. Not an average goalie. Howard is an average goalie. I haven't seen him steal games consistently in the postseason. Mrazek stole playoff games for us last season.

So no, Howard isn't good enough (with this roster). Nobody said we can win the Cup if only Howard played better. This defense has been s*** the last few seasons. Everyone knows that.

Yeah, but now ur arguing that priority should be building a better roster so that an average goalie can excel.

Why then ur clamoring to ditch Howard over the years? Shouldn't you have been clamoring for better skaters...?

[GMRwings1983 8,794]

Yeah, but now ur arguing that priority should be building a better roster so that an average goalie can excel.

Why then ur clamoring to ditch Howard over the years? Shouldn't you have been clamoring for better skaters...?

I was. Wasn't everyone?

[number9 3,297]

I was. Wasn't everyone?

U ignored the first question.

Defense maybe. Forwards have been pretty set.

Still doesn't explain ur desire to remove Howard pre mrazek based on ur logic about average goalies

[vladdy16 2,154]

And thus concludes the Great Goalie Debate portion of this thread. Centers or defensemen is the topic, please.

[GoWings1905 2,694]

I'm going with #1 d-man just because I forgot what seeing one looks like since 2012.

(Sorry Kronner and thanks a lot Ryan Suter for making this happen.)

[Dabura 12,207]

It's a tough call. Obviously it depends on a number of things. What kind of team are you trying to ice? What kind of systems are you employing? What are your head coach's stylistic preferences and philosophical leanings? What kind of talent do you already have at your disposal? What are your team's strengths and weaknesses? Are we talking a truly elite 1C (e.g. Kopitar, as opposed to, say, Ribeiro) and a truly elite 1D (e.g. Keith, as opposed to, say, Kronwall)? What kind of teams are you likely to face in the playoffs and what are their respective strengths and weaknesses?

That's overthinking things, I know. But, the point is, it's sort of a coin flip (assuming the options are more or less equally talented players). I'm a defenseman by training (though, I spent some time as a winger), and the best coach I ever had would always tell the defensemen that forwards are morons and a team's fate will ultimately be decided by its group of defensemen. Defensemen control the game; they're the hands of fate. They decide how the play will unfold up/down the ice (how the puck will be advanced [by Team A] and how that course of action will be countered [by Team B]). They protect the net. They're the "point men" of the o-zone cycle.

At the same time, though, you ain't got s*** without an elite centerman.

Personally, I guess I'd lean ever so slightly towards the 1C being the more desirable of the two. I believe solid team D can minimize the need for an elite defenseman (isn't that basically what we've been doing since Lidstrom retired?), whereas you really can't succeed without an elite centerman's scoring and playmaking and two-way play and the fact that he can go up against the opposition's best players and make life exceedingly difficult for them in all three zones in a way a defenseman can't. I don't know if I actually buy that, but I'll go with that as my answer. At the very least, we know Tyler Johnson was The Difference in our battle against the Lightning. And I think Johnson's wrist injury was an absolutely devastating blow to the Lightning that pretty much guaranteed they wouldn't be winning the Cup.

In terms of this Wings team, I said in the Robbie Russo thread that I might take Eric Staal over Dustin Byfuglien, even if Staal were to cost way more in the way of assets. (Certainly his 2015-16 cap hit is much greater than Byfuglien's.) That's based on the team as it stands right now and the Wings teams that will have to overcome The Fall of Datsyuk and Zetterberg over the next several years. On D, I really just want six solid defensemen slotted in roles for which they're either perfectly suited or slightly overqualified. I think we can win the Cup with a top four of DeKeyser, Green, Kronwall, Marchenko. I don't think we can win the Cup with Datsyuk, Sheahan, Richards as our top three centermen.

Edited August 17, 2015 by Dabura

[jimmyemeryhunter 2,747]

Defenseman.

Edited August 18, 2015 by jimmyemeryhunter

[haroldsnepsts 4,826]

You could make a good case for either but I say d-man because they not only help keep the puck out of your own net, ideally they're keeping the puck out of your own end.

Lidstrom wasn't just great at defense. He was a major part of what drove the Wings offense.

[Hockeymom1960 5,107]

Absolutely defense.

[Dabura 12,207]

Ryan Lambert (hissss) kinda sorta touched on this today:

http://sports.yahoo.com/blogs/nhl-puck-daddy/are-the-los-angeles-kings-in-decline---trending-topics-142235294.html

As for Kopitar, well, you'd think the team would be in a rush to give a guy who's not even 28 yet a long-term deal, given that he is a clearly elite center in a league in which clearly elite centers are perhaps the most valuable commodity of all. Teams simply do not win Stanley Cups without one. You can win with a not-great goalie or maybe even a shaky D corps (not that it's happened recently), but a player like Kopitar is one of two things you need to win in the modern NHL, along with an elite defensemen. There are plenty of teams that have one or the other, but not both, and haven't won anything.

There are no Cup winners that haven't had at least an elite center and a top-flight D since Pittsburgh won in 2009. Carolina is the only other one fitting that description since the salary cap went into effect, and we can all acknowledge that 2005-06 was a weird season all around anyway.

He doesn't really come down on either side of the fence, but he points out that the '09 Pens team that beat us in the Finals didn't really have an elite defenseman. Of course, when you have Crosby and Malkin and you're able to run Jordan Staal as your 3C, you don't necessarily need an elite defenseman. But then, I guess that's sort of where I'm coming from when I give the edge to the 1C. I'd probably rather be super-deep at center (with an elite centerman on the top line) than super-deep on defense. Team D and outstanding goaltending can go a long way in minimizing the need for elite talent on the back end.

Ultimately, though, you want both an elite 1C and an elite 1D. Also, water is wet.

Edited August 19, 2015 by Dabura

[MrazekFanBoy 223]

I wonder if L.A can afford Kopitar or if he even wants to stay after everything that's happening now and will continue to happen in L.A maybe that's why Browns game trailed off.. I wouldn't be surprised if he left unless he is a party animal druggie too

[jimmyemeryhunter 2,747]

I wonder if L.A can afford Kopitar or if he even wants to stay after everything that's happening now and will continue to happen in L.A maybe that's why Browns game trailed off.. I wouldn't be surprised if he left unless he is a party animal druggie too

That's not fair.

[Dabura 12,207]

That's not fair.

It would explain why he looks like a zombie.

[Rivalred 630]

Give me a number one defenseman any day

Wings need to bring in another one one top of what they did

[LeftWinger 4,959]

Put it this way....if you have a stud offense and score 7 goals a game, you aint gonna win if your D gives up 8.

If you have a stingy D that only allows 1-2 goals a game, an average O can put up 2-3 goals most nights to win.

D all the way...but it would also help getting that stud O after that!

[MrazekFanBoy 223]

I wouldn't say an average offense puts up 3 goals a game lol a good offense does, an average offense won't put 2-3 goals up in the post season aka Montreal

[jimmyemeryhunter 2,747]

It would explain why he looks like a zombie.

That's fair.

[krsmith17 7,191]

I think it's obvious that both are very important to the success of a team, but if I were building a team from scratch, I would build around an elite center rather than an elite defenseman. In saying that, with the current makeup of our team, and taking into account the age of our core players and the prospects we have coming in the next few years, if we were putting a package together for one or the other, I would absolutely take the elite defenseman over the elite center.

In the next few years we will have to replace Datsyuk at center and Kronwall on defense. I think we have center prospects that could potentially become elite, but I don't think we have any defense prospects with elite top pairing ability.