Too many hockey specialists are not aware of who Christian Dvorak is
For my work and personal enjoyment, I listen to a multitude of hockey shows and podcasts. Then, one of the things that tickles me lately is the comments about Christian Dvorak, when some people call him a third center... These experts, whom I respect, have certainly not analyzed the entire picture. They relied solely on D-Vo's offensive statistics.
"He's a 3rd trio guy, so Marc Bergevin still has some work ahead of him, which is to find a 2nd center!" - RDS expert
OK! Do you know how much of a poison D-Vo is in the slot? Do you know that he likes to score garbage goals too? Do you know that his shot is special? Did you know that he generated a LOT of offense in the junior ranks? Did you know that Rick Tocchet, in his own words, stifled the D-Vo offense?
"He really developed his faceoff percentage. I used him a lot in the multi-roles, I think it hurt his offense a little bit...when you do that, there's a lot of wear and tear and your offense suffers. With Montreal, he'll obviously play with a deeper team."
Aside from the season in which he only played 20 games due to injury, he scored 15, 15, 18 and 17 goals respectively (in just 56 games). Great for a guy who didn't always play with the same wingers and had to deal with the lack of quality on the wings. Excellent for a guy who was burning to play flawlessly defensively.
He was the most used player by Rick Tocchet. In Tocchet's own words, D-Vo is a special player who is rare in the NHL. He's more of a Patrice Bergeron than a 3rd line center, in my eyes. With a creative winger like Jonathan Drouin and a guy like Josh Anderson to create space, Dvorak could certainly reach the 50 point plateau, including 25 goals. If Jo Drouin stays at the top of his game, it could be smoking hot.
In the end, in my eyes, it's wrong to say that Dvorak is a 35-40 point guy. He is only 25 years old, don't forget that! Remember this: it's going to be Christian Dvorak's breakout year and it's going to happen in a Montreal Canadiens jersey.
