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How good was Zibanejad in his prime?

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Machinehead said:
"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 winner
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Or that three of the consensus best centers in the game playing for small-scale dynasties dominated for a decade and after that it's been more of a revolving door of lesser centers prevailing over better ones. Remains to be seen how history remembers them. And by "lesser" I mean very, very good but up against even better ones. Arguably, Barkov against McDavid wasn't ideal but it was good enough. Barkov to McDavid is not that different from prime-Zibanejad to Barkov. You can get pretty damn far in the playoffs before running into anyone god-tier if the rest of the team is up to task. With a bit of luck the gods have been eliminated before you even reach them.
 
Don't agree with most people here. He was a very skilled 2-way center that was also able to perfom in the playoffs. Rangers had 2 deep runs in the past few years and he managed to get 16pts in 16gp and 24pts in 20gp, which is more than respectable.
 
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he was quite good and no better.

physically gifted, good hands defensively, and most importantly had a sweet steez. hair flyin, soaring all around the ice, big time clapper right to your shit. fun player to watch.

better than barzal, natch. probably not anymore.
 
He was 1PPG+ 3 of 4 years at his best. Led the NHL in goals per game in 2019-20. During a three year stretch was 16th in total points and 9th in goals leaguewide.

Whether he was a good enough player for his team when it mattered most is a fair question, but he was absolutely a 1C at his best.

I won't argue with people that say he isn't at the level of MacKinnon, Matthews, Draisaitl, those guys, but I think he very much was a top 10 center, arguably like 6th or 7th best center maybe, at his absolute best.
 
Hale The Villain said:
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.
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That's overly simplistic.

He sucked in all three series we lost. He got caved in by Point/Cirelli, Hischier, and then Barkov at 5 on 5 those three series.

He was actually relatively decent the first playoff run, and maybe just had a few bad games. I can cut him a slight pass for that, but the two years after he was not good. He got some points, sure, but scoring points has never been an issue for him (except this year where he's been absolutely brutal) because he scores a lot on the PP.

The issue has always been that at 5 on 5 he gets absolutely caved analytically, and his line almost never puts the puck in the net at 5 on 5.

Is he problem #1? You could argue he wasn't. If you want to say Panarin or that the defense can't move the puck outside of Fox, okay whatever. I'm not going to put up a big fight. But when your 1C is constantly getting caved anytime he touches the ice, it's very hard to win a playoff series. He simply hasn't been good enough when he faces top level play driving centers in the playoffs.
 
I take his prime to be from 2019-20 to 2022-23. In that 4 year stretch he had the 7th most points among centres in the league with 297.

Only McDavid, Draisaitl, MacKinnon, Matthews, Huberdeau, and Miller had more points in that time.

So purely from a stats counting perspective he was a top end 1C for a 4 year period.
 
From 2018/19 through 23/24, he was 11th among NHL centres in points, 16th in points per game (I filtered for 100 games played), and 17th in EVP. Solidly a plus player (not the be all, but he didn't devestate the team while playing against solid competition) and was the team's top penalty killing and powerplay centre.

I'd say he was very much a middle of the pack #1 centre.
 
catnip said:
Or that three of the consensus best centers in the game playing for small-scale dynasties dominated for a decade and after that it's been more of a revolving door of lesser centers prevailing over better ones. Remains to be seen how history remembers them. And by "lesser" I mean very, very good but up against even better ones. Arguably, Barkov against McDavid wasn't ideal but it was good enough. Barkov to McDavid is not that different from prime-Zibanejad to Barkov. You can get pretty damn far in the playoffs before running into anyone god-tier if the rest of the team is up to task. With a bit of luck the gods have been eliminated before you even reach them.
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Is it fair to say that a top-10 center is the common element between virtually all Cup winners? With the majority being more like top 5?
 
bondra said:
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.
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I mean he only led the team in the Rangers deep run in points and goals with 24 points and 10 goals in 20 games....what a bum.
 
Best 3-year stretch: 17th in points
Best 4-year stretch: 14th in points
Best 5-year stretch: 15th in points
Best 6-year stretch: 21st in points
Best 7-year stretch: 22nd in points

Hall of Very Good.
 
Peak Z-bad was a middle third 1C.


Has the physical tools and talent to be be an elite star. Not that he was terrible in these areas but his motor and "give a shit" factor could bebetter.
 
Somewhere around the value of an aging Brassard and a Second. At least that's what Pierre Dorrion believed.
 
WarriorofTime said:
Best 3-year stretch: 17th in points
Best 4-year stretch: 14th in points
Best 5-year stretch: 15th in points
Best 6-year stretch: 21st in points
Best 7-year stretch: 22nd in points

Hall of Very Good.
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Be careful.....I don't think anyone (at least I hope not) are talking about whether he's HOF or not, he's definitely not there.....so question, I guess, is how good was he?

As I said earlier, he was (in his prime....feel like we are talking about a player that retired already) a very good player, but I always felt he wasn't quite as good as stats suggested, there wasn't much more to his game, stylistically (not fair, I know) I didn't like it. Never, ever in an argument to be amongst the top-5 centres in the game.
 
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