There were several questions to be answered in the ‘Jonathan Drouin at centre’ experiment for the Montreal Canadiens.
- Can he do it?
- Can he do it well?
- Can it last?
When a player is stepping into the centre position for the first time in the NHL, the coaching staff tends to shelter them a little bit. A quick example is Nathan MacKinnon, who didn’t play centre full-time until the 2016-17 season. His first two years in the NHL saw him on the wing with the likes of Paul Stastny, Ryan O’Reilly, and Matt Duchene.