Sportsnet’s Top 10 NHL players for 2022-23…and who could crack next year’s list

The pre-season is all about debating your takes, predictions and rankings heading into a new season. There aren’t any meaningful games being played yet, which leaves tons of space for debating things both big and small, until we see how it actually plays out on the ice.

So, with that, we canvassed 13 Sportsnet hockey insiders for their opinion on who the top 10 players are in the NHL, heading into the 2022-23 season. These were not broken down by position, so it’s a straight ranking of players.

For this exercise, we assigned point values for each vote. A first place vote equalled 10 points, second place nine points, all the way down to a 10th place voting counting for one point. After tabulating all the votes, we have an official Sportsnet top 10 ranking.

We also asked each of our participants to select one player who they believed could crack this list next season. That could be a more veteran player jumping the line again due to a great year, or a younger player who could emerge and break out as a superstar. We have included some of the more popular picks in this category at the bottom.

And if someone who you’d rank in the top 10 doesn’t appear here, don’t fret. On Thursday, we will analyze the players who came out ranked 11-15, and make a case why perhaps they should have made this list.

Without further ado, here is our top 10 players list for the coming season…

There was little doubt who would top this list, and McDavid was the unanimous pick at the top of every ballot. Since entering the league in 2015-16, McDavid is the highest-scoring NHLer by 73 points, with a 1.43 points per game mark 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 had a 1.40 points per game average over the first seven years of his career.

McDavid is a nightly highlight reel, quick, nimble, with great vision and still room to push the upper-limit of his goal scoring potential. There is no defending this player, and he is unlike any forward before him. He’s reached 100 points in five of his seven seasons, but he could have hit 100 in each of them had he not been injured as a rookie and if the pandemic didn’t interrupt the 2019-20 season. He still managed to hit that plateau in the shortened, 56-game, 2020-21 season. Unbelievable.

If McDavid is a unique forward, then Cale Makar is his equal on the blue line. He looks like a forward out there, with how he attacks the offensive zone and generates scoring. And Makar is no slouch on the defensive side of the puck either. He’s redefining the position and has a Calder Trophy, Norris Trophy and Conn Smythe Trophy already at 23 years old.

Just last season Makar scored 28 goals, which ranked 24th-most in the history of the NHL by a defenceman in one season. Only two blueliners in the cap era have scored more goals in a season than Makar (Mike Green, 31 and Brent Burns, 29) and neither of them ever scored even 20 goals in a season again after reaching those heights. We’d wager Makar will be back over 20 soon, and that he could perhaps chase 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 defencemen.

Last year’s MVP, the difference between Matthews and Makar in our voting was a single point, so you could almost look at them as 2A and 2B. Matthews set a new Maple Leafs single-season high with 60 goals last season, becoming the 40th player to ever hit that mark in league history. 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 to this point is fifth all-time in NHL history among players who logged at least 200 games — behind Bossy, Lemieux, Cy Denneny and Babe Dye. For context, Ovechkin scored 0.63 goals per game across his first six years in the league.

In 2018-19, Leon Draisaitl became the first player in seven years to score at least 50 goals and 50 assists in one season, and when he did it again last season, he became just the fourth player in the salary cap era to do it twice. And then we all saw his masterful work in the 2022 playoffs, scoring 32 points in 16 games to help will the Oilers to the Western Conference final — and he did it, more or less, on one leg. It was one of the most impressive playoff performances in memory.

Draisaitl is the power to McDavid’s finesse, but his vision and offensive ability could rival anyone’s in the league. Since arriving in the NHL on a full-time basis 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 definitive 1C and a standalone superstar. The fact Edmonton can pair him with McDavid to form a super duo is the kind of combination no one else has down the middle.

A perfect mix of speed and absolute head-down power, MacKinnon is a bull on the ice and a major 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 come into his own as an NHLer, but ever since his breakout 97-point season in 2017-18, MacKinnon ranks third in the league by points and points per game.

No, he hasn’t yet scored 100 points or 50 goals in a season — traditional benchmarks for the truly elite. But part of that can be attributed to missing games for various reasons. Since the 2019-20 pandemic-shortened season, MacKinnon is third in the NHL by points per game behind only Draisaitl and McDavid. And now he has a Stanley Cup as well, scoring 24 points in 20 playoff games last spring.

The second defenceman to appear in our list, Hedman can be overlooked by the flash Makar brings to our TVs, but he remains one of the more consistently dominant players at his position. Hedman scored a career-high 85 points himself last season at age 31, and followed it up with 19 points in 23 playoff games. He has not been slowed by the heavy workload he’s had, especially over the past three seasons, where Tampa has made it to back-to-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 running. Can he win another in his 30s, with all the youthful skill entering the position lately?

The outdoor shootout winner in the snow. The Golden Goal. A couple of Stanley Cups. Sidney Crosby’s career has been dotted by some absolutely perfect moments, but also marred by concussions and missed time. Still, he is one of the greatest clutch players in history. His 201 post-season points rank fifth all-time.

Since arriving into the league in 2005-06, Crosby’s 1,409 points rank second, one behind Alex Ovechkin. But when you take games played into account, Crosby’s 1.27 points per game separates him from his rookie rival. Crosby is second in the league by that mark over the past 17 years, behind only McDavid. All-time, Crosby’s 1.27 points per game is tied with Peter Stastny for seventh. He’s still going strong at 35 years old, too, scoring 84 points in 69 games last season for a PPG of 1.22. We cross our fingers that he has a fully healthy season on the horizon here, because Crosby has enough left to keep wowing us some more.

The first goalie on our list, Igor Shesterkin narrowly (by one point) beat out goalie No. 2 here and you can’t go wrong picking either one. Shesterkin has really only played one full season to this point, and a total of 100 regular season games across three years, but he arrived with superstar expectations and has somehow exceeded them.

In those three seasons, Shesterkin’s cumulative .928 save percentage tops the league and is eight points ahead of the No. 2 ranked goalie, among 42 netminders with at least 75 games played. Shesterkin’s .935 save percentage last season was the eighth-best in league history among those to play at least 30 games and he won his first Vezina Trophy for it. And it’s not as though he’s been elevated by a strong team defence. The Rangers ranked 20th in shot differential last season and Shesterkin’s 44.86 goals saved above expected was the best single season mark since Tim Thomas’ 45.77 in 2010-11. The Rangers are an emerging team, but Shesterkin has brought them along faster than they otherwise would have.

Trailing Shesterkin by a single point in our voting, Vasilevskiy is surrounded by the better team, but you’d be foolish to allow that to overlook his accomplishments. Just last year Vasilevskiy posted a .916 save percentage, 2.49 GAA and 39 wins — and it was something of a “down” year for him. He finished fifth in Vezina Trophy voting — the first time in four years that he wasn’t a top three finalist.

A one-time winner of the best goalie award, Vasilevskiy 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 up-and-coming star at the position, then Vasilevskiy is the established and proven rock. Who would you rather have tending the net in a Game 7?

Josi is coming off a remarkable season in which he accumulated 96 points, the first time a defenceman had scored that high in a single season since Phil Housley’s 97 points in 1992-93. Over the past 50 years, only six defencemen scored more in a single season, and that list is full of impressive names: Paul Coffey, Housley, Brian Leetch, Al MacInnis, Bobby Orr and Denis Potvin. And in fact, Josi either scored or assisted on 36.6 per cent of all Nashville’s goals, which was the highest percentage for a defenceman since Bobby Orr’s 39.1 per cent in 1974-75, and the third-highest of all-time.

A Norris Trophy winner in 2020 and a finalist in 2022, Josi is the rock of Nashville’s back end, averaging 25:33 of ice time last season. He has the league’s seventh-highest average ice time since entering the league in 2011-12 and only Brent Burns has taken more shots on net in that time.

WHO COULD CRACK THE TOP 10 NEXT SEASON?

The other part of this exercise was to identify a player who didn’t make the top 10 cut this year, but could play themselves into that discussion by the time the 2023-24 season rolls around. Here are some of the more popular picks:

Jack Eichel, Vegas Golden Knights

The former Buffalo Sabre has teased big breakouts in the past, and maybe the set up in Vegas will finally be able to bring it out. His last two years were interrupted by a neck surgery that hadn’t been done before in hockey, but hopes to help him return to his peak. Over his last three full seasons in Buffalo, Eichel scored 1.06 points per game, which ranked 15th in the league. Surrounded by a better lineup with a legitimate playoff outlook, can this be the year he reaches 100 points, and can he stay healthy? If both of those happen and Vegas does return to the playoffs, Eichel could go from getting zero top 10 votes to quickly entering the discussion.

Jack Hughes, New Jersey Devils

Last year could have been the breakout for Hughes, in Year 3 of his career. The progression is obvious: .34 points per game as a rookie, .55 points per game as a sophomore, and then 1.14 points per game last season. But injuries limited the attention being paid to this rise. After scoring three points in his first two games, Hughes disclocated his shoulder and missed multiple weeks. His season was shut down a little early in April due to a knee injury. In all, Hughes played 49 games and scored 56 points. The 26 goals he recorded were more than he tallied in the first two years of his career combined. Twenty of those markers came at even strength too. Stay healthy and Hughes could arrive in a big way, and pull the emerging Devils up with him.

Artemi Panarin, New York Rangers

After scoring 96 points last season, Panarin got a single 10th place vote in our exercise this year, but you can see how a huge season could generate him some more attention for a top 10 spot a year from now. Since entering the league, Panarin has the fourth-most points among all NHLers, trailing only McDavid, Draisaitl and Patrick Kane. He’s been a Hart Trophy finalist before, finishing third in voting after the interrupted 2019-20 season in which he tallied 95 points in 69 games to finish third in league scoring. The Rangers are coming along quickly too. So, if the team keeps improving and Panarin has another MVP-calibre season, he could earn more votes next season.

Adam Fox, New York Rangers

The 2020-21 Norris Trophy winner, Fox followed that up with a 74-point season that placed him fifth in voting for the award. He figures to be right back in that mix this season, too. Since entering the league three years ago he’s the league’s fifth-highest scoring defenceman, and one of the most dangerous power play contributors at the position. There’s a bit of a pattern here with Rangers players and there surely won’t be three of them cracking the top 10 next season, so it may take an award to move either Fox, or Panarin, back in. And that’s not a stretch for either player.