Without Kopitar: Carter & Stoll & Richards VS the World

(Consider this an alternate history piece with the news that Anze Kopitar's injury shouldn't be too severe.)

You know what the best/worst thing about Twitter is? The ability to share totally unsubstantiated claims with the world.

Like on Sunday, when Kopitar went down with an injury, and I suggested that a lot of teams wouldn't mind a trio of Jeff Carter/Jarret Stoll/Mike Richards up the middle.

So I decided to investigate the facts. It's a good thing that I didn't specify the exact number of "a lot of teams"!

Figuring out each team's top three centermen at any given time is difficult, but I tried my best by utilizing a combination of Daily Faceoff's latest lines and 2014-15 Average Time on Ice statistics.

Keep in mind that I'm not assessing contracts or potential at all. I'm pitting the merits of Carter/Stoll/Richards versus the rest of the league right now, based on play.

The gem of this trio is Carter—there aren't many better 1C's, and he's arguably the best second-line center in the league, depending on who you consider to be Boston's 2C (Bergeron receives slightly less ATOI but is clearly a superior player to Krejci). As for Stoll and Richards, I believe Jarret can still produce at a reasonable level and that Richie suffered from a spot of bad luck last year:

In no particular order, here are the 12 center trios that I'd take over LA's group out right:

And here are the 17 teams that might be delighted if they had LA's Kopi-problem:

What do you think? I will save any specific explanations for the Comments section, but in my book, featuring a dominating 1C (Giroux) or great duo (Thornton/Couture) offset a relative lack of depth (what's a Tierney or Bellemare?).

While the Tinseltown trio's underlying numbers don't look great compared to their peers, there are some extenuating circumstances: The Kings, by design, score less than say, Anaheim. Also, it's slightly harder to produce a positive CF % RelTM on a very strong possession squad.

To their credit, Carter/Stoll/Richards is the only trio besides New Jersey's that actively participates on both sides of special teams. Richards's low 4v5 FA60 RelTM suggests top-notch penalty-killing ability. It's telling that every significant Dean Lombardi centerman is (or was) a model two-way pivot.

Overall, I still think that the Kings would be OKAY without Kopitar for an extended period of time. OKAY meaning that I'd still expect a playoff spot, comfortably, with decent team health otherwise. Carter is very good. However, the center position in all would cease to be a team strength and become about league-average.

Of course, Los Angeles is still deep at the wings, defense, and yes, in goal (at least so far this season). All that would help cover up a softer center.

Anyway, that's the regular season. If Kopitar were to miss the playoffs once again, who's up for some McTanking?

All stats courtesy of Hockey Analysis and Puckalytics.