Playmaking Center

There have been many threads on here about needing a sniper to improve the Red's scoring woes. Wouldn't a playmaking center be a better addition though? I always felt our lack of natural centers was a major blow to our offense. How we recruited classes so weak down the middle is beyond me. A good guy down the middle can make his entire line good. Crosby and Giroux are at the top of the league in points with pretty much no one to help. Bardreau seems to be the closest we have, but even he doesn't really fit the bill.

(IMHO) Bardreau's a playmaker. He creates chances but hasn't had linemates finish them consistently.

cuhockey93
Crosby and Giroux are at the top of the league in points with pretty much no one to help.

I agree with you on Crosby, but not so much on Giroux. The Flyers have 6 players with over 20 goals scored, and one with 19. Giroux isn't even the leading goal scorer on the team. Simmonds is.

Jeff Hopkins '82

cuhockey93
Crosby and Giroux are at the top of the league in points with pretty much no one to help.

I agree with you on Crosby, but not so much on Giroux. The Flyers have 6 players with over 20 goals scored, and one with 19. Giroux isn't even the leading goal scorer on the team. Simmonds is.

Isn't that the point of a playmaker? To see up goals for the rest of the team?

I felt like Cornell's offense was too discombobulated to draw any conclusions about players' individual playmaking abilities. I have a hard time believing Bardrea's failure to set guys up was the fault of his linemates, considering he was on the first line.

BearLover
I have a hard time believing Bardrea's failure to set guys up was the fault of his linemates, considering he was on the first line.

"Fault" is too strong when you're talking about a rare event to begin with (like scoring a goal), but I do think it's fair to say if a player is consistently setting guys up and no goals come out the other end, then something's up. Now, it may be that players are peeling off at the least sign of counterattack, in which case it's The System (TM).

The guy I think is the best "playmaker" on the whole team, as far as creating scoring chances out of nothing, is Ferlin, in particular because the chances he sets up come disproportionately from in close. We don't seem to convert many of those, either, but all this may be confirmation bias.

BearLover

Jeff Hopkins '82

cuhockey93
Crosby and Giroux are at the top of the league in points with pretty much no one to help.

I agree with you on Crosby, but not so much on Giroux. The Flyers have 6 players with over 20 goals scored, and one with 19. Giroux isn't even the leading goal scorer on the team. Simmonds is.

Isn't that the point of a playmaker? To see up goals for the rest of the team?

That was my point. He's got plenty of people to help.

The Giroux point has to do with his line. He has arguably the worst supporting 1st line of the top 10 scorers. Plus most of Simmonds goals are on the power play that Giroux quarterbacks. So there is 4 of the 6 20 goal scorers. It also looked as if Ferlin was worse with Bardreau than without him this year. Playmakers make those around them better, and the guys playing with Bardreau didn't really look any better than without him.

Is Ferlin gone?

cuhockey93
The Giroux point has to do with his line. He has arguably the worst supporting 1st line of the top 10 scorers. Plus most of Simmonds goals are on the power play that Giroux quarterbacks. So there is 4 of the 6 20 goal scorers. It also looked as if Ferlin was worse with Bardreau than without him this year. Playmakers make those around them better, and the guys playing with Bardreau didn't really look any better than without him.

Gotcha. Now I get your point. It's not that nobody is scoring. It's that his skill has "nobodies" scoring.