How good was Zibanejad in his prime?

[My3Sons]

Has he really lost that much of his ability? He's only 31. He can still blast a shot and moves easily on the ice to my eyes. His issues seem more mental/emotional this season than physical.

 

[catnip]

These threads are always a bit funny. Ideally, McDavid would be my team's 2C and then we'd have someone better as our 1C but I guess we'll try and make do with less.

 

[JESSEWENEEDTOCOOK]

i guarantee 90% of the people here watched maybe 1 game during Mikas peak

he was a f***ing monster at both ends of the ice. “soft and bad defensively”? maybe now. not 3 years ago.!

 

[Machinehead]

These threads are always a bit funny. Ideally, McDavid would be my team's 2C and then we'd have someone better as our 1C but I guess we'll try and make do with less.

I mean...yeah?

Like 75% of the Cups since the lockout have been won by teams with top 5ish centers, so the bar for an ideal 1C is extremely high.

 

[robsenz]

Can't win with players like him, his game isn't complete enough

 

[SniperOnTheWing]

Talking about the guy like he’s been retired for ten years

 

[ponder719]

I mostly saw him play against the Flyers, and given his power play numbers against us, he was Alex Ovechkin in his prime.

 

[effen]

Not all teams are going to have an elite 1C, NYR was one of those teams.

He's about what Larkin is now if Larkin had a better shot and Panarin to play with. You don't accidently score 40 goals in the NHL, that takes skill. Heck, he had 30 goals - 74pts even before Panarin was a Ranger.

He was a top line player, just was never an elite player. He had his flaws, Panarin made up for those flaws. He was never a play driver but he was more of an asset than a liability.

He's not the reason why NYR didn't do better during his prime.

He's absolutely terrible with Panarin and has played with him maybe 3% of non-PP time the last 5 years.

 

[AhosDatsyukian]

Top 15-20 C; probably not quite top 10

 

[catnip]

I mean...yeah?

Like 75% of the Cups since the lockout have been won by teams with top 5ish centers, so the bar for an ideal 1C is extremely high.

Sure, and teams with top 5ish centers have lost even more Cups.

I'm mostly just chuckling at the idea that everyone's ideal 1C is a future hall-of-famer and those poor plebs who fall short of that should find themselves on the second line. That's just being greedy.

 

[Machinehead]

Sure, and teams with top 5ish centers have lost even more Cups.

I'm mostly just chuckling at the idea that everyone's ideal 1C is a future hall-of-famer and those poor plebs who falls short of that should find themselves on the second line. That's just being greedy.

Yes. Everyone's ideal 1C is a future Hall-of-Famer.

It's not greedy, it's realistic.

 

[koyvoo]

You are so funny

At least a suitable username was used for the comment

 

[FanCos]

Talking about the guy like he’s been retired for ten years

In his mind, he's been at least for a year and a half.

 

[tarheelhockey]

Eventually, you're gonna run into a matchup in the playoffs where you're asking Zibanejad to match up against a world-class center.

That’s how I would assess him. There’s always a cluster of centers who are something like the 8th-20th best in the league, meaning they break even or give you an advantage most of the time. But it also means that you’re at a disadvantage against the big dogs, and the big dogs tend to be the centerpiece of Cup contenders. So unless you’re absolutely stacked as a total team, that guy’s probably going to hold you back from ultimate success.

 

[Machinehead]

That’s how I would assess him. There’s always a cluster of centers who are something like the 8th-20th best in the league, meaning they break even or give you an advantage most of the time. But it also means that you’re at a disadvantage against the big dogs, and the big dogs tend to be the centerpiece of Cup contenders. So unless you’re absolutely stacked as a total team, that guy’s probably going to hold you back from ultimate success.

That's the issue and people might say it's not fair, but hey, hockey is not fair.

Here are the Cup winning centers since the lockout:

2006 - Staal
2007 - McDonald
2008 - Datsyuk
2009 - Crosby
2010 - Toews
2011 - Bergeron
2012 - Kopitar
2013 - Toews
2014 - Kopitar
2015 - Toews
2016 - Crosby
2017 - Crosby
2018 - Backstrom
2019 - O'Reilly
2020 - Point
2021 - Point
2022 - MacKinnon
2023 - Eichel
2024 - Barkov

I'd bet my house on everyone in red being in the Hall of Fame and the guys in blue either have a case or it's just a bit early right now. It's pretty overwhelming. People say there's no recipe for the Cup -- isn't there though? Have an all-world center. Season to taste.

The only guys in about two decades that are gonna need to for sure buy a ticket to visit the HHOF are McDonald and O'Reilly. McDonald had one of the most stacked defense corps of all-time. Even the "B-tier" guys on this list like Point and Backstrom had Kucherov and Ovechkin.

So, yeah, I guess if you wanna take the 1 in 19 chance that you just win the Cup for no reason like the Blues did, go for it, but it's not playing the odds.

 

[Hale The Villain]

Can be harsh opinion, but Mika is probably one of the reasons Rangers didn't won cup past few years. Good production but not really a ideal 1C in cup winning team.

Zibanejad had 44 points in 40 playoff games for the Rangers the last 3 seasons.

He's been garbage this year but he's definitely not the reason they weren't able to win a cup the last few years.

One of the better playoff performers in the league actually.

 

[John Mandalorian]

Talking about the guy like he’s been retired for ten years

It’s not exactly enhancing his appeal in various trade scenarios...(for HF discussion at least).

 

[Machinehead]

Zibanejad had 44 points in 40 playoff games for the Rangers the last 3 seasons.

He's been garbage this year but he's definitely not the reason they weren't able to win a cup the last few years.

One of the better playoff performers in the league actually.

He had 14 of his 16 points last playoffs in the first two rounds and then did nothing against Barkov. That's the whole problem.

The other problem is that 20 of those 44 points were on the powerplay.

Not having a legit elite center is absolutely a factor as to why the Rangers aren't particularly close to the league's top teams.

 

[catnip]

Yes. Everyone's ideal 1C is a future Hall-of-Famer.

It's not greedy, it's realistic.

But it's not at all realistic to expect that one will just show up just because, and then complain about only having an average 1C when it doesn't happen. That's why it's greedy. Welcome to sports. Some athletes and teams are better than others.

Also, if we're being that literal about "ideal", I guess it could be said that there are roughly 2 ideal 1Cs in the entire league (and the other one may be a bit of a stretch) and, not unexpectedly, neither has initials MZ. But that would make this whole discussion a bit pointless, wouldn't it? No one is ideal. Everyone should be on the second line. Except for the teams that still lose while having ideal 1Cs - which happens to be most of the teams that have them.

With the value people place on top centers, it's kind of interesting that the consensus top 5 for the past few years tends to feature exactly one cup winner. The fifth place on the list seems to be based on a game of musical chairs and goes to whoever played 1C on the reigning champion. The four others have won one Stanley Cup between them in about forty seasons combined. Based on that, you could almost suggest that the bar could be lowered from "ideal" to "good enough" which is quite a bit lower in my opinion.

And now I have wasted too much time on this. I don't actually care this much and this is a bit off-topic anyway, so let's just agree to disagree.

 

[Machinehead]

But it's not at all realistic to expect that one will just show up just because, and then complain about only having an average 1C when it doesn't happen. That's why it's greedy. Welcome to sports. Some athletes and teams are better than others.

Also, if we're being that literal about "ideal", I guess it could be said that there are roughly 2 ideal 1Cs in the entire league (and the other one may be a bit of a stretch) and, not unexpectedly, neither has initials MZ. But that would make this whole discussion a bit pointless, wouldn't it? No one is ideal. Everyone should be on the second line. Except for the teams that still lose while having ideal 1Cs - which happens to be most of the teams that have them.

With the value people place on top centers, it's kind of interesting that the consensus top 5 for the past few years tends to feature exactly one cup winner. The fifth place on the list seems to be based on a game of musical chairs and goes for whoever played 1C on the reigning champion. The four others have won one Stanley Cup between them in about fourty seasons combined. Based on that, you could almost suggest that the bar could be lowered from "ideal" to "good enough" which is quite a bit lower in my opinion.

And now I have wasted too much time on this. I don't actually care this much and this is a bit off-topic anyway, so let's just agree to disagree.

"Good enough" is a Hall of Famer. Look at the list I posted.

You could make the argument that a Hall of Fame center has been on 17 of the last 19 Cup winners.

 

[Hale The Villain]

He had 14 of his 16 points last playoffs in the first two rounds and then did nothing against Barkov. That's the whole problem.

The other problem is that 20 of those 44 points were on the powerplay.

Not having a legit elite center is absolutely a factor as to why the Rangers aren't particularly close to the league's top teams.

So he helped his team win two series and then his scoring dropped when he was matched up against the reigning Selke winner and best shutdown center in the league. Is that supposed to be bad or even surprising?

Zibanejad's production actually increased in the playoffs. 1.02 PPG the last 3 years versus 1.00 PPG during the regular season. Nitpicking how he led the Rangers in scoring while stepping up his game is ridiculous.

The only centers with better playoff point-per-game numbers than Zibanejad over that same period are McDavid, Crosby, Draisaitl, MacKinnon, Eichel and Matthews.

Much bigger issue is obviously Panarin going from being an elite offensive player with a 1.29 PPG in the regular season to only 0.77 PPG come playoff time.

 

[Eye of Ra]

Overrated and super soft.

Right now Yes...but 3 years ago?

 

[bondra]

Zibanejad had 44 points in 40 playoff games for the Rangers the last 3 seasons.

He's been garbage this year but he's definitely not the reason they weren't able to win a cup the last few years.

One of the better playoff performers in the league actually.

Its only my opinion, his not bad player and I didn't say his production is bad. There is just something missing and not only this season but in past too.

Lets say this way that if my team is going to playoffs with Zibanejad as 1C and the opponent teams has centers like MacKinnon, McDavid, Matthews, Barkov, Point, Draisatl, Eichel, Crosby or even likes of Hughes and Aho, I know we are losing in that area and that is big problem.

 

[KJoe88]

Average 2c who made the occasional good play.

 

[BWJM]

Needs to cut his hair and maybe he'll learn to play defense.