The Blackhawks may have more center options than they know what to do with, and that’s shaping up to be one of the most interesting roster questions heading into the season.
On a recent episode of “Powers and Laz,” Scott Powers suggested the team could open with rookie Roman Kantserov as the top-line center. If that’s the direction they go, it only adds to a crowded picture down the middle that already includes Connor Bedard, Frank Nazar, Oliver Moore, Ryan Greene, Ryan Donato and, by the end of last season, Anton Frondell.
Bedard and Nazar were the Blackhawks’ top two centers for most of last season, but injuries forced head coach Jeff Blashill to improvise. Moore, Greene, Donato and Frondell all spent time at center when the lineup needed it, and not all of those experiments carried the same weight.
Greene and Donato are natural centers, Moore looked much more comfortable in the middle than on the wing, and Frondell handled most of his 12 NHL games there. Kantserov, meanwhile, was his club’s number one center all of last season.
General manager Kyle Davidson added another layer this summer when he said publicly that the Blackhawks plan to try Bedard, Frondell and Nazar at center this season. That leaves the team with a real sorting job: who stays in the middle, and who gets pushed to the wing?
It’s a good problem to have. Centers are harder to find than wingers, and moving a center outside is a lot easier than flipping it the other way. But the Blackhawks still have to decide how to use all that talent, and they’re not in a place where they can simply spread it around for the sake of balance.
The argument here is that Bedard is the only true center on the roster, with the rest filling in around him as the season unfolds. That would still leave the Blackhawks with six other players competing for the final three center spots.
What seems clear is that the team can’t afford to scatter its best young talent too thinly. Putting Bedard, Nazar and Frondell on separate lines would do exactly that, and at this stage of the rebuild the priority is getting the best players into the top six. That group includes Bedard, Nazar, Frondell and Kantserov.
Chemistry will matter, too. Blashill has said he prefers to think in pairs rather than trios, looking for two players who work well together and then filling in the rest of the line from there.
For now, the cleanest approach appears to be having only one of Nazar, Frondell and Kantserov play center in the top six, with the other two on the wing. Moore, Greene and Donato can sort out the bottom-six center jobs from there.
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