Best Czech Centers All-Time

[JianYang]

Kind of a mediocre list for a hockey nation that has the resume of Czechia.... although if we go back to czechoslovkia, then you have the great Peter Stastny and there's no debate.

Also, didn't nedved play center?

 

[OgeeOgelthorpe]

Lang and Holik were my choices. Krejci and Reichel close at 3 and 4 though.

Straka and Prospal were more often wingers than centers if my memory is correct.

 

[Professor What]

Kind of a mediocre list for a hockey nation that has the resume of Czechia.... although if we go back to czechoslovkia, then you have the great Peter Stastny and there's no debate.

Also, didn't nedved play center?

Of course, even then, Stastny is Slovak.

 

[Staniowski]

Reichel is kind of the quintessential Czech centre. He was just a little lacking in size and speed, but was usually very strong on the national team, and no doubt would've won many scoring titles in the Czech league if he hadn't played in the NHL. The Czech national team was usually best served if the team played the Reichel (and Rucinsky) style of game.

Rosie Ruzicka was very talented, his limited success in the NHL shouldn't diminish his overall ability.

Pivonka was very good. I remember him from way back in the WJC, where he was great. Hrdina was very good in the '80s too, but not as good as Pivonka.

Novy, Hlinka, and Nedomansky from the '70s (and a bit in the '60s). Novy was a good scorer, he wasn't as good as Reichel though. Ned was big and mobile, had some scoring talent, but was a little unrefined. Hlinka was very smart, really nice player.

 

[Boxscore]

Nedomansky without a doubt. I went with him and Reichel (based on talent) but could also make a case for Krejci.

 

[BenchBrawl]

Not that I think he should win, but Tomas Plekanec was an excellent two-way center through his entire career. Just had the wrong chair in Montreal from lack of depth at center.

He has over 1000 NHL games under his belt, in the tough markets of MTL and TOR. Never a Selke winner, he was never-the-less always in that category just below the Selke contenders and was serviceable offensively.

 

[sr edler]

Funnily enough, with regards to Czech centres in NA, both Jiri Dopita and Jan Bulis had 4-goal games in the NHL. Also Tomas Hertl had a 4-goal game, but he's at least been a fairly prolific scorer at times. But Dopita only had 12 NHL goals overall, before heading back to Europe. He was a prolific domestic scorer though (Dopita) and on the 98 Olympic gold medal winning team, so it's not like he was a nobody.

But Euro centres back then often came in the Pivonka, Raimo Helminen or Thomas Rundqvist mold which was a bit of a different mold than the stereotypical NA centre.

 

[The don godfather]

Krejci by a landslide he was lethal in playoffs.

 

[VanIslander]

Thank you for including Pivonka.

He is the only poll option with zero votes now, but he impressed the hell out of me: he is halfway between Oates and Backstrom: a puck-drawing, pass-puck-to-shooter pivot who also has to cover the backcheck and turnovers against.

He is top-3 of those options imo (Nedomansky too different, lesser known to say).

EDIT: assuming we are talking about one league nowabouts? K. All-time? No.

 

[Crosby2010]

Nothing against David Krejci, he had a nice career, but I can't believe he is the best Czech centre of all-time. That's a low standard, despite his playoff resume.

 

[Felidae]

Nothing against David Krejci, he had a nice career, but I can't believe he is the best Czech centre of all-time. That's a low standard, despite his playoff resume.

I agree.

Though I don't think Krejci peaked the highest among the few guys here.

Even among only NHL players, Straka for instance peaked at 4th in scoring and had another season finishing 11th in points. I don't think he was as much of a product of Jagr as people make him out to be, he didn't even play with Jagr EV during the season he finished 4th.

I think the votes for Krejci mostly have to do with his year to year consistency and playoff record, and it's hard to argue against it since its something Lang and Straka lack.

 

[Felidae]

Also I've thought of making it a thread before just cause their stats are as close as 2 players can get and careers overlapped almost perfectly, but since this thread was made guess i'll post it here. Who do we prefer between Lang and Straka?



Lang has 703 points in 989 games, his best season he finished 9th in points and 4th in PPG.

Straka has 717 points in 954 games, at his best finished 4th in scoring and 9th in PPG.

Lang hung on 4 years longer so I'm sure their PPG would be even closer removing those seasons

 

[sr edler]

Straka was 3rd (or tied 2nd) in scoring on his own team that year and it was a fairly underwhelming window overall.

 

[sr edler]

Actually he represented Canada at the Olympics

They were even close to winning but got Forsberg'd. Nedved was one of (the few) star players on that team, the other being Kariya.

But there was just something with Nedved that struck me as more of a winger than a centre.

 

[VanIslander]

Novy.

Edit: when you hear greatest Czech center, why don't multiple Czechoslovakian team members come to mind? They were Czech. They domìnated the world stage. They never played in Pittsburgh or NY.