Colin White has turned some heads during his rookie season and interim head coach Marc Crawford recently shared his thoughts on the team's 22-year-old pivot.
"I think he's going to be a top-2 centre when it's all said and done," said Crawford. "He's shown an ability to score, he's shown an ability to make plays and he's shown an ability to play with other good players and now you're seeing him add those dimensions of being reliable and someone you can count on."
White's offensive numbers have been solid during his first full NHL season and he currently sits 4th in active team scoring with 35 points (13G, 22A) in 62 games this season. Crawford also believes that White's role has room to expand and he expects the young centre could be used in a similar way to an opposing player tonight.
"We haven't really touched much on him being a penalty killer but I would suspect that one day he'll be a guy that we use somewhat like Patrice Bergeron," Crawford said. "Bergeron plays on the power play, plays on the penalty kill and plays big minutes...200-foot players do that."
White idolized Bergeron as a kid growing up in Boston and, while the comparison may be lofty, the Sens interim head coach believes that he can learn a lot from playing against a player of that calibre tonight.
"Anybody can learn anything from playing against Bergeron," said the coach. "He just plays the game the right way."
"He does the right things, he says the right things, he's a leader and he lives the right way," Crawford continued. "In order to be a top player in the National Hockey League there's a huge sacrifice that comes with that. Having watched all the great players that I've been involved with, it never ceases to amaze me that the one similar factor that they have is that they are always the hardest working guys."
