A reminder of just how bad Atlanta will be this year
Darryl Sutter once put forth the theory that there are maybe 15 actual top-line centers in the National Hockey League at any time. He offered no further definition of what makes or doesn’t make a player a No. 1 pivot.
But assuming that he’s right (the number might be slightly higher than that but the theory’s more or less correct), that leaves at least 15 without a true No. 1 center. This year, Atlanta is absolutely one of those teams. Why?
Meet “No. 1 center” Erik Christensen.
It’s more than 2,300 miles from his home in Edmonton to his job in Atlanta, but Erik Christensen drove it gladly, and not just because he sat behind the wheel of a BMW while Slayer songs blasted from the speakers.
Christensen was driving toward opportunity, the kind of opportunity he has waited for all his life. The Thrashers plan to make him their first-line center.
ERIK CHRISTENSEN? The 25-year-old third-round pick who has never played a full NHL season in his life, was injured three different times last season, who has a career points-per-game total of .46 and averages 12:52 of ice time a night? THAT Erik Christensen is who you want centering Ilya Kovalchuk?
Yes, as it turns out. How does a local paper spin that to sound positive?
With Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin skating on the top two lines, the Penguins didn’t know what to do with Christensen. His playing time varied between low and very low, about 12-1/2 minutes per game.
…
“We certainly are going to give him that opportunity,” general manager Don Waddell said. “He’s got the skill level and the skill set to play with guys like that.”
“He’s got a really good shot. He’s got quick hands. He’s a good skater. He’s a strong skater,” Thrashers coach John Anderson said.
Except none of that is especially factual, and nothing Waddell says can qualify as truth. This is such fact that, in my quest to find any NHL highlights of Christensen as a means of vindicating him, I a) found none, and b) stumbled upon a post at the Pensblog that said “Even Erik Christensen would have scored” in the 82-0 Bulgaria game. Great site though the Pensblog is, I’m sure even they would admit to blind homerism in most cases. When they’re not backing up a well-thought-of former Pen, that player must have been quite bad.
But the best part of the article — the most laugh-out-loud, fall-down hysterical paragraph — started like this…:
Christensen has proven he can score when given the chance.
…And ended like this:
His 54-goal, 54-assist season for Kamloops six years ago gave him the Western Hockey League scoring title.
SIX YEARS AGO! IN JUNIORS! Just put him down for the Art Ross now then.
Poor Kovalchuk. He must just pick up the AJC every day and sob into his Cheerios. How can any team play this as a good thing? One imagines Kovy and his wife will begin boxing up their belongings around late December, when the Thrashers are already out of the playoffs. Hopefully the Thashers can at least offload him for another future top-line guy like Stefan Ruzicka.
