OTTAWA, ON – SEPTEMBER 12: Sidney Crosby #87 of Team Canada answers questions during media availability after practice in preparation for the World Cup of Hockey at Canadian Tire Centre on September 12, 2016 in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. (Photo by Andre Ringuette/World Cup of Hockey via Getty Images) (PUCK LISTS*is where Ryan Lambert*arbitrarily lists hockey things. It runs on Tuesdays.)
The thing with best-on-best tournaments is that you get an awful lot of talent stacked up in one place.
The Team Canada roster for the World Cup of Hockey, for instance, has about 10 of the 20 best centers on the planet on it. Doesn’t really seem fair, but that’s how it goes. And of course, the distribution of hockey talent in a tournament like this is never uniform. The worst forward in Canada’s group would probably be the Czech Republic’s best by a decent margin.
With this in mind, because there is nothing anyone likes better than putting players from certain positions in numerical lists, why don’t we examine the who and why of the best No. 1 centers each team brought to the tournament.
You can probably predict how this is going to go.
8 – Tomas Plekanec, Czech Republic
It should come as little surprise that Plekanec, who’s not a particularly dominant player any more, comes in last on this list. The Czechs have a serious paucity of talent basically anywhere in the lineup, so the fact that the 33-year-old, No. 3 scorer on a team with the No. 16 offense in the league is leading the way isn’t in any way surprising.
Now look, Plekanec is a perfectly fine player. He is slightly above-average in a lot of ways. But in terms of No. 1 centers on the global stage, he’s a clear step back from the rest. The same, unfortunately, can be said for his fading (faded?) hockey power of a country.
7 – Aleksander Barkov, Finland
I’m giving Barkov a bit of a penalty here for playing with Jaromir Jagr, which probably isn’t all that fair. I think he’s really, really good. But honestly we haven’t seen him play much away from the big man to be sure that playing with Patrik Laine and Jussi Jokinen goes as well for him as playing with Jagr and Jonathan Huberdeau.
But man, this kid is good. Among the other centers in this group, his goals per 60 at 5-on-5 last season was tied for second and his shot attempt generation was third. And he only turned 21 a week and a half ago.
6 – Henrik Sedin, Sweden
This is what I mean about how deep best-on-best tournaments are. Henrik Sedin is still really good, even if he’s old as heck at this point. With absolutely no help apart from his brother, and despite playing with injuries pretty much all year, Henrik still put up 55 points in his age-35 season. Pretty damn incredible.
It’s rare that a team is better at literally everything — corsi, fenwick, shots, goals, etc., both for and against — when a player of any age is on the ice, but that applies to Henrik Sedin’s 2015-16 “I played hurt all year for a trash club” campaign. How about this for a stat: When Sedin was on the ice, the Canucks scored 54.4 percent of all goals at 5-on-5. When he was off, they scored just 39.5 percent.
He’s that much of a difference-maker, and he’s still only No. 6 on the list.
5 – Evgeni Malkin, Russia
Controversial to put this guy here, I know, but there are a lot of really good centers ahead of him, most of them coming off career years. Malkin was actually seventh out of the eight No. 1 centers in this group in terms of primary points per 60 at full strength last year. And given that he was once again better than a point a game this past season, that speaks to the strength of his competition here.
He would be the No. 1 center on virtually any team in the entire league, and he doesn’t even break into the top half on this list. Jeez.
COLUMBUS, OH – SEPTEMBER 9: Joe Pavelski #8 of Team USA stretches during pregame warmups prior to a game against Team Canada on September 9, 2016 at Nationwide Arena in Columbus, Ohio. (Photo by Jamie Sabau/World Cup of Hockey via Getty Images) 4 – Joe Pavelski, United States
This is one of those things that always comes up, but Joe Pavelski is underrated. In each of the last four full 82-game seasons, he’s scored at least 31 goals. Over the past three post-lockout years, he’s second in goals to Alex Ovechkin (Ovechkin at a bonkers 154, Pavelski at 116), one of only nine players to clear 100 goals over that stretch.
He’s also sixth in total scoring over that time, one of just eight guys to clear 225 points. The guys ahead of him have names like Crosby, Benn, Kane, Seguin and Ovechkin. Playing with Patrick Kane and Max Pacioretty on the top line for the US should keep that production running apace.
And would you look at that: He’s a huge possession driver — plus-5.4 relative CF% last season, tops among anyone here — despite*playing on a possession juggernaut to boot.
Man, Joe Pavelski is awesome!
Why don’t we talk about this more?
3 – Anze Kopitar, Team Europe
I can’t honestly say that I*think Kopitar is necessarily better than Pavelski or Malkin, but: a) it’s close, and b) he’s the reason Team Europe even exists.
Let’s just put it this way: His unadjusted CF% last season was 57.5 percent and he hit 70-plus points for the fifth time in the last seven full seasons. The two times he didn’t, it was a mere 66 in 2008-09, and 64 in 2014-15. This despite some of the toughest assignments Darryl Sutter can find. He won a Selke this year and has been in the top-four for each of the past four seasons.
This is a center pretty much everyone acknowledges is really good, but he somehow doesn’t get the Jonathan Toews, “He could score as much as he wanted if he focused less on defense.” Probably because he’s better than Jonathan Toews and doesn’t need excuses made for him.
2 – Connor McDavid, Team North America

Time to face facts: McDavid is probably already the second-best player alive, and he’s gonna start closing the gap on Sidney Crosby fast.
McDavid had 12 points in his first 13 games. Then he got hurt and missed almost half the year. Then he came back and had 36 points in his last 32 games.
He finished 15th in the league (among all players with at least 500 minutes at 5v5) in goals per 60, eighth in assists per 60, and SECOND in total points per 60. He spent most of last season as an injured 18-year-old. And all of it without much help. It may not be Crosby clearing 100 points as a rookie, but McDavid going 48 in 45 given all mitigating factors is mighty, mighty impressive.
Throw in linemates like Johnny Gaudreau and Jack Eichel for this tournament, and I really wouldn’t be surprised to see him lead the tournament in scoring.

  1. Sidney Crosby, Canada

Obviously.
He’s been the best player alive for a decade, and McDavid hasn’t caught him yet. Nothing else needs to be said.
Ryan Lambert is a Puck Daddy columnist.*His email is here and his Twitter is here.
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Greg Wyshynski is a writer for Yahoo Sports. Contact him at [email protected] or find him on Twitter. His book, TAKE YOUR EYE OFF THE PUCK, is available on Amazon and wherever books are sold.
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