I'm not even real sure about the question I'm asking...Are there defensive centers in the league? Is Toews one?

What is the job or responsibilities of a center? How should the position be played?

Gay status of Spaulding revoked for dumb question.

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Toews is a center who is defensively responsible on top of his scoring prowess (what the Selke Trophy is meant to recognize), but not a true defensive center in terms of being a specialist. Some archetypal defensive centers of recent vintage you might recognize would be John Madden and Samuel Pahlsson, but for their time in New Jersey and Anaheim, respectively, more than for their cups of coffee in Chicago. Some say Boyd Gordon is one, but he's not defending much of anything in Edmonton these days.

Offensively, centers generally have more playmaking responsibilities than their wingers, though Jarome Iginla is a notable exception, and an infamous one if you happen to remember "Setting Up The Play."

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Who made you the arbiter of hockey homosexuality?

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Fare you well, fare you well
I love you more than words can tell
Listen to the river sing sweet songs
To rock my soul

Relax Tarzan it was a bit when I let her in.

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Q, That name isn't even on the members list, I checked.

A couple months back I got into a discussion about how center can be played and how it should be played. A kid in hockey was playing center (was told to) hang back a lot to cover for teammates and uh deficiencies. I disagreed with the philosophy and said if you want that kid to play defense have him play defense. Don't have him play center and then hang back on defense.The person used Toews as an example, which didn't make a lot of sense to me.

Fast forward to a different team. This kid is now being yelled at by the new coach he needs to be involved in the play/up by the goal and he's in the wrong spot blah blah blah.

I want to know what is right and what is not.

Thank you CH. Fuck you pittmike.

Centers generally do hang back of their wingers, yes. They have to see more ice.

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Unless you are a cherry picker like Ovechkin or to a lesser extent Crosby. Then you lay back for other reasons.

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Has there ever been a less defensive center than ovechkin?

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"Play until it hurts, then play until it hurts to not play."
http://soundcloud.com/darkside124 HOF 2013, MM Champion 2014

Gretzky was close.

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Toews main ability is to win faceoffs, and take the opposing offensive center off their game. I'm not sure if this is a serious or sarcastic subthread?

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1926-1931-1934-1942-1944-1946-1964-1967-1982-2006-2011

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Fare you well, fare you well
I love you more than words can tell
Listen to the river sing sweet songs
To rock my soul

Lol oh how I wish facebook allowed gifs.

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Do you not like Gretzky?

So what is the responsibility of a center?

Gretzky was by far, not the fastest... or the most gifted.
Gretzky changed the game. 99 was the first C that would hold the puck behind the opponents net and just let the play develop.

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1926-1931-1934-1942-1944-1946-1964-1967-1982-2006-2011

I love Gretzky. He just did not care all that much for defense. He is the best ever but I respected Lemeiux and Messier more in that time.

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Faceoffs, playmaking, zone entry, covering the middle of the ice as opposed to along the boards (though Toews is of course a great board-battler).

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What about now?

Middle of the ice towards the net or the blue line?

Now Gretzky would fit in this NHL more than even before. If the great Crosby has 105 points Gretzky would go 160. I do not know how old you are Spaulding but he was sick. Like holy shit what the fuck shit sick. He had a 200 point season if not more than one. If you only took his assists he would still be the highest scorer of all time.

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Four of them, but remember how clueless NHL goaltending tended to be in the '80s. You can't clean up like that anymore. They're all good now. Even bad goalies are good.

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I'm 36 almost 37. I tell my son all the time if you took away all Gretzky's goals he'd still be the leading scorer of all time. It came up in a sports trivia thing a couple weeks ago.

I wish I would have liked hockey growing up.

This is by far the biggest change in the game I have seen since the NJ Devils center ice clutch and grab.

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Toews has a subtle game that's going to be underrated by nature. What he does is difficult to measure against historical greats.

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1926-1931-1934-1942-1944-1946-1964-1967-1982-2006-2011

I spent way too much time watching squiggly sportsvision games or sneaking into bars that would serve me with the game to watch the Oilers beat my Denis/Big Al/Larmer Hawks.

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This is very true. For me the best way to know how good Towes is is to watch the interviews or other shows that have other players speak about him.

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