The pre-season is all about debating your opinions, predictions and rankings ahead of a new season. No meaningful games are being played yet, which leaves tons of room for debate, both big and small, until we see how it actually plays out on the ice.
So with that, we asked 13 Sportsnet hockey experts for their thoughts on who the top 10 players in the NHL are, heading into the 2022-23 season. These weren’t broken down by position, so it’s a straight player ranking.
For this exercise, we have assigned point values to each vote. A first place vote equaled 10 points, second place nine points, up to a 10th place vote counting for one point. After tabulating all the votes, we have an official Sportsnet top 10 ranking.
We also asked each of our entrants to select a player they thought could make this list next season. It could be a more veteran player jumping the line again due to a big year, or a younger player who could emerge and break out as a superstar. We’ve included some of the most popular picks in this category below.
And if someone you’d rank in the top 10 doesn’t appear here, don’t worry. On Thursday, we’ll look at the players who went 11-15, and explain why they might have made this list.
Without further ado, here is our list of the top 10 players for next season…
There was little doubt who would top this list, and McDavid was the unanimous choice at the top of every vote. Since entering the league in 2015-16, McDavid is the NHL’s leading scorer with 73 points, a mark of 1.43 points per game that is currently the fourth highest in league history , behind Wayne Gretzky, Mario Lemieux and Mike Bossy. To give you a little more recent context on that number, Sidney Crosby averaged 1.40 points per game over the first seven years of his career.
McDavid is a nightly highlight reel, quick, agile, with great vision and still room to push the upper limit of his scoring potential. There is no defense for this player, and he is unlike any striker before him. He has reached 100 points in five of his seven seasons, but could have reached 100 in each of them had he not been injured as a rookie and if the pandemic had not interrupted the 2019-20 season. He still managed to reach that plateau in the 56-game shortened 2020-21 season. incredible
If McDavid is a unique forward, Cale Makar is his equal on the blue line. He looks like a striker around here, with how he attacks the offensive zone and creates goals. And Makar is no slouch on the defensive side of the puck either. He is redefining the position and has a Calder trophy, Norris trophy and Conn Smythe trophy already at 23 years old.
Last season, Makar scored 28 goals, which ranked 24th in NHL history by a defenseman in a season. Only two Blues players in the cap era have scored more goals in a season than Makar (Mike Green, 31 and Brent Burns, 29) and neither again scored 20 goals in a season after ‘having reached these heights. We’d wager that Makar will be 20-plus again soon, and that he could perhaps chase down 32 goals in a season, a top-10 all-time mark by a blueliner. Since entering the league three years ago, Makar is averaging 1.01 points per game, tops among all defensemen.
Last year’s MVP, the gap between Matthews and Makar in our voting was a single point, so you could almost see them as 2A and 2B. Matthews set a new Maple Leafs single-season record with 60 goals last season, becoming the 40th player in league history to ever reach that mark. And he missed nine games.
Consider this: Since entering the league as a rookie in 2016-17, Matthews leads the NHL with 259 goals, four more than Alex Ovechkin, who is chasing the all-time career record. Matthews has scored 196 even-strength markers in that time, which is 23 more than No. 2 Connor McDavid. And his 0.64 goals per game thus far is fifth all-time in NHL history among players who recorded at least 200 games, behind Bossy, Lemieux, Cy Denneny and Babe Dye. For context, Ovechkin scored 0.63 goals per game in his first six years in the league.
In 2018-19, Leon Draisaitl became the first player in seven years to record at least 50 goals and 50 assists in a season, and when he did it again last season, he became the fourth player in the ‘it was of the salary limit to do it. twice. And then we all saw his masterful work in the 2022 playoffs, scoring 32 points in 16 games to help the Oilers to the Western Conference finals, and he did it, more or less, on one leg. It was one of the most impressive playoff performances in living memory.
Draisaitl is the powerhouse of McDavid’s finesse, but his offensive vision and ability could rival anyone in the league. Since coming to the NHL full-time in 2015-16, Draisaitl is behind only McDavid and Patrick Kane in points, and behind only Ovechkin and Matthews in goals. On almost every other team, Draisaitl would be the ultimate 1C and a superstar in his own right. The fact that Edmonton can pair him with McDavid to form a super duo is the kind of combination that no one else has in the middle.
A perfect blend of speed and sheer power down low, MacKinnon is a bull on the ice and a great driver on Colorado’s top line, which is one of the best in the league. It took a couple of years for the 2013 first overall pick to make it as an NHL player, but since his 97-point season in 2017-18, MacKinnon ranks third in the league in points and points per party
No, he has yet to score 100 points or 50 goals in a season, the traditional benchmarks for the true elite. But some of that can be attributed to games lost for various reasons. Coming off the pandemic-shortened 2019-20 season, MacKinnon is third in the NHL in points per game behind only Draisaitl and McDavid. And now he has a Stanley Cup, too, scoring 24 points in 20 playoff games last spring.
The second defenseman on our list, Hedman may be overlooked for the flash that Makar brings to our televisions, but he remains one of the consistently dominant players at his position. Hedman scored a game-high 85 points last season at age 31, and followed that up with 19 points in 23 playoff games. He hasn’t been slowed by the heavy workload he’s had, especially over the last three seasons where Tampa has reached back-to-back Stanley Cup Finals. Hedman has averaged nearly 25 minutes per regular season game in that span and more than 25 minutes per playoff game.
He has one Norris Trophy to this point in his career and has been a top three finalist for the award six years in a row. Can he win another one at age 30, with all the youthful skill coming into the position lately?
The winner of the outdoor shooting in the snow. The Golden Goal A couple of Stanley Cups. Sidney Crosby’s career has been dotted with some absolutely perfect moments, but also marred by bruises and missed time. Still, he’s one of the best clutch players ever. His 201 postseason points rank fifth all-time.
Since coming to the league in 2005-06, Crosby’s 1,409 points ranked second, one behind Alex Ovechkin. But when you factor in games played, Crosby’s 1.27 points per game separates him from his rookie rival. Crosby is second in the league for that mark over the past 17 years, behind only McDavid. All-time, Crosby’s 1.27 points per game are tied with Peter Stastny for seventh. He’s also still going strong at age 35, scoring 84 points in 69 games last season for a 1.22 PPG. Let’s cross our fingers that he has a fully healthy season on the horizon here, because Crosby has enough left to keep surprising us a little longer.
The top goalie on our list, Igor Shesterkin, narrowly (by one point) edged out the No. 2 goalie here, and you can’t go wrong picking either. Shesterkin has really only played one full season so far, and a total of 100 regular season games over three years, but he came in with superstar expectations and has somehow exceeded them.
In those three seasons, Shesterkin’s .928 cumulative save percentage leads the league and is eight points ahead of the No. 2 goalie among 42 goalies with at least 75 games played. Shesterkin’s .935 save percentage last season was eighth-best in league history among those who played at least 30 games, and he won his first Vezina Trophy for it. And it’s not like he was elevated by a strong team defense. The Rangers ranked 20th in shot differential last season and Shesterkin’s 44.86 goals saved above expectations was the best in a season since Tim Thomas’ 45.77 in 2010-11 . The Rangers are an up-and-coming team, but Shesterkin has carried them faster than they would otherwise.
Trailing Shesterkin by a single point in our poll, Vasilevskiy is surrounded by the best team, but he’d be foolish to let that overshadow his accomplishments. Vasilevskiy posted a .916 save percentage, 2.49 GAA and 39 wins last year, and it was a bit of a “down” year. He finished fifth in Vezina Trophy voting, the first time in four years that he was not among the top three finalists.
Vasilevskiy, a one-time MVP award winner, is at his best in the playoffs, and especially in key moments. Over the past three years, he has a .950 save percentage, 1.39 GAA and a 20-2 record in elimination games. If Shesterkin represents the rising star at the position, then Vasilevskiy is the proven, established rock. WHO…