Montreal Canadiens general manager Marc Bergevin likes to say – no, sorry, he loves to say – that No. 1 centres don’t grow on trees and teams that have them don’t trade them.



Speaking in very general terms, that’s true, but there are obviously exceptions.



A look around the NHL shows that of the 60 top-2 centres on the 30 teams that existed prior to this season – the Vegas Golden Knights were not included for obvious reasons – 41 of them were drafted by their teams, 15 were acquired via trade and four were free agent signings (among the free agents there is Alexander Kerfoot of the Colorado Avalanche, a college free agent, and Kyle Brodziak of the St. Louis Blues, who was only playing a top-6 role because Paul Stastny was traded at the deadline).



There are some teams where you could debate who exactly is a top-2 centre, but saying roughly two thirds of them were drafted would be fair, as it would be to say they are...