Systems Concepts Series: The Concept of Center

How Patrik Laine, Adam Fantilli could combine for the next wave of offense

This is the first in a series detailing the ideas expressed by CBJ’s new head coach Pascal Vincent through the lens of Darryl Belfry’s new book Belfry Offense.

I don’t have to tell any of you, or the Blue Jackets organization, about the importance of the center-ice position. The lack of quality center play has been dooming the Blue Jackets for quite some time.

The bad news, is that they still don’t have enough players who are competent centermen, though they have some on the way. The good news, is that the Blue Jackets have some versatile pieces that position them well for the next wave in style of play.

I introduced previously the roles and shape necessary for success in the modern NHL, at least according to Darry Belfry. The good thing is, Pascal Vincent seems to agree. To account for that, Darryl Belfry no longer sees Center as a position but as a structure.

“My thinking about the center position has evolved from a person to a stewardship of a responsibility. It’s about controlling the middle corridor of the ice in all three zones, both offensively and defensively, and the glue holding the shape.

Centers and F3

The importance of this position starts with the station of the center being the typical F3. Either way, this player has to hold the dual-position as the nexus between the two most important triangles. Good F3 play frees up defensemen for activation up-ice and liberates F1 and F2 to make attacking, aggressive decisions. In fact, Darryl Belfry has changed his thinking about this position to be necessary for quality play.

“The defensemen are active and engaged because of their absolute trust in F3. F3 is not a luxury on these teams, it is a constant presence…”

“The entire offensive zone is reliant upon having an F3 and sprinting reloading.”

If controlling play (possession) in the O zone is the most important objective and F3 is the most important role in that objective, then it’s easy to see why the Blue Jackets may have struggled all the way back in defending entries. They simply didn’t have seasoned players whose skillsets matched with that responsibility.

Boone Jenner is serviceable in this position but he’s better served as a net-front puck funnel who plays below the dots (read: F2) than he is someone who patrols high-ice.

Cole Sillinger has an interesting skillset, and can certainly be a solid F3, but his combination of low footspeed and lack of experience, resulting in slow-reads and being late to checks, meant that he wasn’t a reliable presence in this area. His game is well suited to being an F2 already, he loves and is mostly proficient in crashing the net, but whether or not he can add layers while playing in the NHL remains to be seen.

Kent Johnson showed some acumen in his ability to read the game and disrupt exits but lacked the strength for the FO to give him long looks. The org, and himself, like his potential in controlling the center-ice but he’s still very green.

Patrik Laine got a two game peek at the center position, based on his film work and desire to contribute, but he too was still learning.

Centers in the D Zone

Now, this isn’t to say that F3 is the only responsibility of center-ice. As much as they are the connecting point in the O zone triangle, they fill the same position in the D zone. Like the triangle in the O zone, the center is working in concert with defensemen to limit chances and break out of the zone.

The same list of players before has pretty similar evaluations when placed in these D zone roles. Boone Jenner separates from the pack because you’re very comfortable with him battling on the back wall and winning faceoffs, though his breakout skills still suggest someone who is better on the wing. As far as making reads at pace, the rest of the young players will still have similar struggles.

Interestingly, here’s where Darryl Belfry draws knowledge from Patrice Bergeron, though from an angle you may not expect.

“However, 2018-2019 is his only season over a point a game, and that was the only season he flirted with registering an 80-plus point season. If he is in the middle connective position most often and many plays have to go through him, because he’s so easy to play with and is always in the right position to give you an out, why then is he not more offensively prolific?”

The ultimate conclusion from this astute line of questioning is this:

“Playing center, and hitting all the objectives of being an effective center, is too much for one player with the speed of the game today.”

Here, Darryl Belfry learned from a person favorite of mine, Martin Necas (imagining a powerplay being run by Necas, Jiricek and Laine is a difficult image for me to put out of my mind).

“If Bergeron is in the right place all the time, but has to often make conservative decisions offensively to hold the integrity of the position on the “next play,” and MacKinnon’s superhuman characteristics make the way he plays the position unreasonable for others, then maybe Necas and Carolina have cracked the code and offered insight into another way to play center.”

It is exactly this style that I believe to be the correct path forward for the Blue Jackets.

Shared Responsibilities

“If the position is truly shared by two capable centermen, now they can rotate out of the middle more comfortably, but also more strategically.”

This quote should be all of the reason for excitement for Blue Jackets fans, but it doesn’t stop there. First things first, though. Pascal Vincent said he shared a lot of the systems approaches that Mike Babcock did, which they both developed along with the analytics department as part of projects spanning the summer.

It appears as though they were on to this concept, because Babcock often cited wanted two 200-ft players on each line.

Here, then, the respective journeys of Kent Johnson, Cole Sillinger, Patrik Laine and even Adam Fantilli (maybe even players like Alex Texier, Emil Bemstrom or Gavin Brindley) should serve as very encouraging. Many of them still have quite a lot of room to grow, but each of them taking time to learn the depths of other positions have the Blue Jackets strategically positioned to create a five man offense of the future.

But the excitement shouldn’t stop there.

“Now, if it’s challenging for the low forward to consistently get into the rush because they are often 30-50 feet behind the exit play due to the back wall and corner nature of the defending, then how do we get meaningful numbers on the rush consistently?”

“… it’s about activating whomever is highest of our low defensive triangle.”

Sure, two 200-ft players, right? Notice, however, that Belfry doesn’t mention “whichever forward is the highest of our low defensive triangle”, he is also explicitly including defensemen.

Here then, we can see that the Blue Jackets have defense prospects, David Jiricek, Denton Mateychuk, Stanislav Svozil and Corson Ceulemans, who show advanced ability to activate up ice and carry the puck to play off the rush.

Recently, they added players such as Ivan Provorov and Damon Severson who love joining the rush. All of this points to a team and system oriented in the right direction. We’ve seen Zach Werenski play quite a lot of hockey off-the-rush but he’s often been a solo effort.

All that remains is the hardest part, unfortunately, which is creating a system of trust, anticipation and work away from the puck. If Pascal Vincent can get his players to buy-in to the commitment and structure, which we should expect to take some time, it’s possible he can unlock heights of performance that didn’t seem possible before this season and we can expect Patrik Laine and Adam Fantilli to be at the center of it.