Grading every NHL team's centre depth

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Our multi-series talent tiers feature continues this week, with a focus on the centre position. If you missed the opening week, we took a swing at grading the left wing and right wing positions. 

The competition at the centre position league-wide is extraordinary. So much of the league’s talent plays down the middle of the ice right now, and so the bar to clear for this position is much higher relative to their wing counterparts.

A couple of housekeeping notes before we get started:

1. I am going to be generous to the Boston Bruins here and assume the team executes on their plan to bring back both Patrice Bergeron and David Krejci, neither of whom have current contracts.

2. Players with consequential, long-term injuries and on long-term injured reserve are excluded from the depth charts, as we expect significant time to be missed. Two big names (and their respective teams) impacted by this: Tampa Bay’s Anthony Cirelli, and Washington’s Nicklas Backstrom.

To the tiers!

Tier 5, In Trouble: Arizona Coyotes, Chicago Blackhawks, Columbus Blue Jackets

I don’t think much explanation needs to go into any of these three teams. Arizona and Columbus’ depth is utterly dire, a combination of journeymen skaters and young centres who haven’t shown much yet at the NHL level. It’s hard to envision a scenario, even in instances where both teams out-perform relative to expectations, where their centres are the ones driving the bus.

The Blackhawks are an interesting team in this scenario. It’s rather grim behind Jonathan Toews – the same Jonathan Toews that has been talked about as a likely trade candidate for a rebuilding Blackhawks organization. At his peak, Toews was perhaps the preeminent two-way centre, and as a trade