B/R's Top 32 NHL Player Rankings for the Start of the 2025-26 Season

The 2025-26 NHL regular season is here, and it should be an exciting one for fans across the league.

Here are a few things we have on tap for this season:

Given all of that talent and all of those storylines, it's a great time to be a hockey fan.

With that said, we are going to highlight some of the best talent in the league by taking a look at the top 32 players in the NHL heading into the start of the regular season.

The Senators have assembled a talented core of young players, and a year ago, it resulted in the franchise's first playoff berth since the 2016-17 NHL season. It's been a long road back, but with players like Tim Stutzle and Brady Tkachuk at the top of the lineup, they have a chance to stick around.

But for as good as that duo has become for the Senators, there's another of their young stars who has become the best player on the roster and one of the best players in the league.

It's defenseman Jake Sanderson.

He is only 24 going into this season, but has already proved he is one of the league's elite all-around defenders. He had a breakout year offensively with 57 points during the 2024-25 season, shone at the 4 Nationals Face-Off against some of the best players in the world, and finished in the top-10 in Norris Voting.

His production, combined with his all-around play, makes him an emerging star and one of the best defensemen in the league. His eight-year, $64 million contract extension is going to end up being a steal under a rising salary cap in the coming seasons, especially as he really starts to reach his prime.

Slavin may not put up some of the dominant offensive numbers that other top defenders do, but there might not be a better shutdown defensive presence in the NHL.

He is as good a defensive player as you will find in the NHL right now, while he is still able to chip in around 30-40 points offensively. But the point totals only tell a small part of his impact on the Hurricanes' offense.

He still possesses enough offensive ability and puck skills to keep play moving north and drive possession, while consistently having some of the best underlying possession metrics in the NHL. When he's on the ice, great things are generally happening for the Hurricanes.

Slavin will shut down your team's best skater, and he can still keep play moving in the right direction for his team's best skaters.

If you were looking for a knock on Vasilevskiy at this stage of his career, it would probably be that he hasn't had a strong postseason showing in a couple of years.

He also struggled a little during the 2023-24 season in an injury-plagued campaign. However, he demonstrated in 2024-25 that he can still dominate in the crease and play at a level that few other goalies can reach when fully healthy.

Five or six years ago, he might have been a top-10 player. He's slipped a bit since then, but he remains a top-tier talent.

Even when you take into account his injury-plagued 2023-24 season that saw a drop in his numbers, there are still only four goalies in the NHL (minimum 100 games played) that have a higher save percentage than him over the past three seasons. He's a game-changer.

When Guentzel was in Pittsburgh, he was viewed as a player who was simply riding shotgun next to Sidney Crosby and collecting goals in an ideal situation alongside one of the league's all-time greats.

However, there have been many talented players who spent considerable time alongside Crosby and failed to score goals or produce at the same level as Guentzel.

All he has done since leaving Pittsburgh is continue to score goals.

He already has three 40-goal seasons in his career, and the only thing that has kept that number from dramatically increasing is the shortened seasons (both due to injury and the two pandemic-shortened seasons).

For his career, he's averaged a 37-goal pace per 82 games, is an incredible postseason performer, is always in the right place at the right time in the offensive zone, and is one of the NHL's best finishers.

Guentzel plays great next to top players. But he's also a top player on his own merits.

Nylander's placement at 28 could get pushback in a lot of different directions.

There's an argument for him being higher, and a more irrational argument from critics that maybe it's too high, simply because Toronto has a lot of people who just don't like him.

But he works in this spot. He's an outstanding offensive player, but he has some defensive shortcomings that might slightly diminish his standing compared to some of the league's top players.

I'd want him on my team, but if I were trying to win a Stanley Cup this season and could pick any player, mock-draft style, there are a handful of players I'd take before him.

Morrissey has become a consistent Norris Trophy contender, finishing in the top seven of the voting three years in a row, including two years within the top five.

Offensively speaking, he is one of the top point-producers in the league among defensemen, recording 207 points over the past three seasons. Only Cale Makar, Quinn Hughes, and Erik Karlsson have topped him over that stretch, and he's done so while playing for a Jets team that has only been middle-of-the-pack offensively.

He's also a better defensive player than he sometimes gets credit for (sometimes the offense overshadows his play away from the puck), and is a tremendously well-rounded player who can log big minutes in any situation.

Morrissey is the best, most consistent, and most well-rounded skater on the Jets' roster.

Hischier is not going to light up the scoreboard like some other top centers will, but he's a Selke-level defender and still scores at a 70-80-point pace.

That is a valuable player, and he is the perfect complement to the more dynamic and offensively gifted Jack Hughes in the New Jersey lineup.

It took him a few years to fully blossom into the complete player he is, but now that he has, he is on the shortlist of the best players in the league.

There aren't many forwards (or players in general) as complete as him across all three zones of the ice.

If there has been one thing holding the Hurricanes back from winning a Stanley Cup, it's that they have never had a top-line megastar who can take over games and instill fear in opposing defenders and goalies.

Aho is the closest thing they have to that.

And while he may not be a Connor McDavid or Auston Matthews, he is still a wonderful offensive player you can pencil in for 35 goals every year while also playing smooth, two-way hockey.

He's a perfect fit for the Hurricanes' style of play and their best, most impactful overall player.

Sometimes, Point gets lost in the shuffle in Tampa Bay, given how many elite players have played in Tampa Bay.

For years, Nikita Kucherov, Steven Stamkos, Victor Hedman, and Andrei Vasilevskiy were the foundational pieces, but Point has always been right there with them. He's a 40-50 goal scorer and is still going strong even as he approaches his age-30 season.

He isn't a perfect defensive player, but there is no denying his offensive impact and ability to produce. The Lightning do not have the scoring depth they once had and have to rely on players like Point to carry the offense.

He does, and in a way few other players in the NHL can match.

When things go wrong for Bouchard, they usually go spectacularly wrong. And that is the sort of thing that gets a defenseman criticized and knocked down a few pegs.

But while Bouchard does have a tendency to get caught or make mistakes, those errors are outweighed by brilliance and near-unmatched production.

You can focus on the mistakes if you want, but the bottom line is that when Bouchard is on the ice, the Oilers outscore their opponents at a rate that is almost unmatched among NHL defenders.

Over the previous three seasons, no defenseman has had a better expected goal share during 5-on-5 play than his 59.2 percent, while the Oilers also have a 56.2 percent goal share. If the mistakes were that problematic, they wouldn't dominate their opposition the way they do when Bouchard is on the ice.

Add in the fact that he's become an elite point-producer from the blue line with strong postseason numbers, and it's hard not to include him among the league's best players.

From almost the moment he arrived in the NHL, Heiskanen has been regarded as one of the best defensive players in hockey, and a lot of the metrics back up that claim.

Since the start of the 2022-23 season, the Stars have allowed just 2.32 expected goals per 60 minutes of 5-on-5 play and own a 55.6 percent expected goals share. Both numbers place him and the team near the top of the league over that stretch, while he is also able to produce elite point totals when healthy.

His offensive numbers took a slight hit in 2024-25, as he was limited to just 50 games due to injury. However, he's typically a 50-point scorer with shutdown defense for one of the NHL's top teams.

The only thing that might be keeping Hughes from being higher on this list is the simple fact that he can never seem to play a full season.

Injuries have dismantled a significant portion of his career to this point—and also greatly limited the Devils' upside as a team—but there are few players in the NHL more dynamic than him when healthy.

He's scored at a 1.19 point per game pace since the start of the 2021-22 season, a mark that puts him among the top 12 scorers in the NHL over that stretch.

If the Devils can just keep him healthy for a full season, he would be a contender for the scoring title and perhaps even an MVP award.

From a strictly offensive standpoint, Rantanen's numbers have consistently been near the top of the league.

He's been a 100-point scorer, but he has done so while playing alongside—or at least on the same team as—one of the top players in the league in Nathan MacKinnon.

There was always going to be a question of whether he could carry a team or a line on his own without having MacKinnon around.

The sample size is small, but including playoffs, Rantanen had 48 points in 51 games (including playoffs) with the Hurricanes and Stars after he was originally traded away from Colorado.

That's still outstanding production, and he was at his best after arriving in Dallas. He had just six points in 13 games with the Hurricanes, and he was at 42 points in 38 games with the Stars.

He's a great player with or without MacKinnon.

There is not much to be happy with when it comes to the Buffalo Sabres outside of a couple of tremendous individual players.

Tage Thompson (who just missed the cut for this list) is one of them. Dahlin is the other.

One of two No. 1 overall picks on the Buffalo blue line (Owen Power being the other), Dahlin's career has blossomed the past couple of years to the point where he is not only one of the best overall defensemen in the NHL, but also one of the best players in the NHL.

He does everything you want a No. 1 defenseman to do and has the type of ability that can take over games all by himself. It's just all being wasted by an organization that can't get out of its own way.

Imagine how good he'd be on a serious team that could actually put a playoff-caliber roster around him.

Over the first six or seven years of his career, Werenski was a hidden gem in Columbus who never really received much attention because of the state of the team around him.

But over the past three or four years, things have taken off for him on an individual level, to the point where he finished the 2024-25 season as a runner-up for the Norris Trophy as the NHL's top defenseman.

And he's doing it in a situation where the rest of the defense around him doesn't offer much support (both offensively or defensively).

Columbus is putting together quite a young roster with Werenski being one of the key veteran centerpieces for it.

For some reason, Fox found himself as one of the big scapegoats for the Rangers' disappointing 2024-25 season, and a poor showing at the 4 Nations Face-Off didn't help his cause.

However, the criticism became excessive, escalating rapidly and eventually losing its seriousness.

He's an elite power-play quarterback; he can drive offense and is one of the few defensive bright spots on a Rangers team that has been a constant farce during 5-on-5 play overall.

Even during a "down" year for Fox, the Rangers outscored teams by a 67-48 margin with a 55.7 percent expected goals share when he was on the ice during 5-on-5 play.

When he wasn't on the ice, the Rangers were outscored by a 113-125 margin and had an expected goal share down in the 45 percent range. And this is the guy who's taking the heat for the team's defense not being good enough? While never having a consistently reliable partner? Nonsense.

He's still one of the best players in the league.

Marner became the scapegoat in Toronto for the consistent playoff failures, and he does have to own some of that for some of his postseason performances. They weren't good enough for what Toronto needed.

But there's a fine line between taking ownership of some bad postseasons and overly crushing the player as a whole.

While Marner needed to do more in the playoffs, he's still one of the best and most productive forwards in the league and is now going into a Vegas situation that might be a perfect fit for him.

While the new contract carries a special type of pressure, the spotlight in Vegas is not quite the same as it is in Toronto, where an established core is in place that has had real postseason success. These players are expected to be the leaders of the team, specifically Jack Eichel and Mark Stone.

Don't be surprised if he flirts with 100 points during the regular season and breaks through in the playoffs.

Pastrnak is one of the bright spots on a Boston team that has rapidly become a mediocre member of the NHL's mushy middle.

They're not contenders. They're not rebuilding. They're just sort of plodding along with some serious flaws in their roster that significantly lower their ceiling.

While that sounds uninspiring, they do still have one of the league's top offensive players in Pastrnak.

He's become an annual lock for 40 goals and 100 points, and he is on track to be one of the greatest offensive players the Bruins have ever had.

Shesterkin is carrying on the Rangers' legacy of elite goaltenders tasked with the responsibility of lifting an otherwise mediocre team.

For the most part, he's done the job.

His 2024-25 season was the worst of his career to date, with a pedestrian .905 save percentage, which played a significant role in the Rangers' disappointing overall performance.

That's not meant to be a knock on Shesterkin, either. Because a .905 save percentage is still a league average, to perhaps even slightly above league average number in today's NHL. It's the type of performance a good team should be able to win with.

That simply wasn't the Rangers in 2024-25, and it left them almost helpless, which is a bigger indictment on the team than it is on him.

Having said that, he can bounce back in a big way in 2025-26 and play closer to the standard he's set for himself over his career. That means him dragging the same flawed Rangers team back into the playoffs and maybe even through a round or two before a better team eventually wears them down.

After having the first six years of his career wasted in Buffalo, Eichel escaped the shackles of the Sabres and became the superstar he was always supposed to be the moment he arrived in Vegas.

He's been a point-per-game player with the Golden Knights while also taking gigantic strides with his defensive play, to the point where he finished in the top five of the Selke Trophy voting this past season.

He has become a remarkable all-around player and is the best player on one of the league's top Stanley Cup contenders, one with which he has already won a Stanley Cup.

Tkachuk is the type of player NHL general managers and head coaches would crawl over broken glass to have on their team.

He does everything. He scores. He defends. He plays a chippy and physical game that annoys the life out of everybody on the other side. He's also been a key contributor to a team that's played in three consecutive Cup Finals, winning each of the past two.

His trade to Florida is one of the biggest, most significant roster transactions in the salary-cap era and helps create a mini-dynasty.

Tkachuk is expected to miss the first couple of months of the season, but he is expected to return around November or December to support the Panthers' three-peat attempt.

Perhaps this placement is a sign of deference to his overall career, but it's also hard to ignore what he is still doing, even into his late 30s, on a team that has slowly descended into mediocrity and is now undergoing a rebuild.

Is Crosby the player he was at his peak? Not even close.

Is he still one of the best players on the ice every night, no matter who the opponent is? Absolutely. Being a 90-point player and playing 80 games a season in your age-35, 36, and 37 seasons is pretty much unheard of in the history of the NHL.

Crosby is still doing it, and he will still be doing it this season.

In terms of pure offensive ability and playmaking ability, there's only one defenseman in the NHL right now who can compare to what Hughes has been doing for the Canucks the past couple of years.

Hughes is one year removed from winning the Norris Trophy, was a finalist a year ago despite playing in just 68 games, and for a team that badly underachieved around him. He just seems to keep getting better as an all-around player.

He isn't quite an elite shutdown defender, but he's not a complete zero in his own end of the ice, and he's probably underrated for his play without the puck. He has become one of the elite players in the NHL, regardless of position.

The only unanswered question regarding Hughes now is where he will be playing in two years. Will he re-sign in Vancouver? Or will he make a play to get alongside his brothers (Jack and Luke) in New Jersey?

Outside of peak Marian Gaborik, the Wild have never really had a player like Kaprizov. His arrival changed the entire vibe around the franchise, not only giving them an MVP-level player but also making them fun to watch.

Even when the Wild were winning games and making the playoffs in the pre-Kaprizov era, nothing about them or their style was enjoyable or exciting. They had no flash, no true star power, and nobody who was a contender for a major award like a Hart Trophy or a scoring title.

Kaprizov does all of those things and checks all of those boxes. If he had not missed half of the 2024-25 season, he was on track for an MVP-caliber year. The Wild were able to finally secure a new long-term contract extension for him before the season, which makes him the highest-paid player in NHL history.

In terms of pure goal-scoring ability, Matthews has arguably taken over the title as the top goal-scorer in the sport, even if his 2024-25 season saw a dip in that department.

He's improved his all-around game every year he's been in the league and is easily on the shortlist of the league's best players.

The only real knock on him at this point is that his playoff performances on the biggest stage have, at times, left a lot to be desired. He will have to change that at some point, and it would be beneficial to both him and the Leafs if he did so sooner rather than later.

Even so, a healthy Matthews is a near-lock for 40 goals, a serious contender for 50 with an outside shot at 60.

There aren't many players in the NHL with that sort of ability.

In terms of pure offense, there's almost nobody better than Kucherov in the NHL right now, or in this era.

He has won three scoring titles, including each of the past two, and is not only a top-line goal scorer but also a world-class playmaker who has tallied 184 assists over the past two seasons.

It's not an exaggeration to say that it's Gretzky or Lemieux-level playmaking, and he's doing it outside of the 1980s and early 1990s. He's going to be 32 years old this season and is not really showing any signs of slowing down. If anything, he seems to be improving and becoming more productive.

This might elicit some negative reactions, given the poor recent playoff showings, but it's hard to ignore the overall body of work and the significant impact of Hellebuyck's performance.

Even with the past three disappointing postseasons, he's the best goalie in the world right now, and there isn't a current resume that matches up with him.

His overall save percentages are at the top of the league.

He's already a three-time Vezina Trophy winner and is coming off an MVP season in 2024-25.

The Jets are a good team, but they're nowhere close to a 50-win, 110-point team without Hellebuyck playing at the level he has been.

If you want to blame him for the Jets not doing more in the playoffs, that's fair. But you also have to credit him for helping even get them there.

There are only a handful of goalies in the NHL you can count on to give you consistent play year in and year out, and Hellebuyck has become one of them.

If the Jets want more out of him in the playoffs, they should consider giving him a better backup who can take some of the regular-season workload off of him so he does not get worn down by an unsustainable workload.

Makar's performance never ceases to amaze.

He's played six years in the NHL and has been a finalist for the Norris Trophy in five of them, winning the award twice. He will add more to his personal collection before his career is finished.

The only year he didn't finish as a finalist was his rookie season, when he finished ninth in the voting and still took home the Calder Trophy as the league's rookie of the year.

He's reached the 90-point mark two years in a row, scored 30 goals as a defenseman in 2024-25, and he not only plays a top-pairing defensive role but also scores like an All-Star-level forward.

For his career, he's a better-than-point-per-game player and averages a 90-point pace over 82 games. It's ridiculous and unheard of for a defenseman in this era, or for any era outside of Bobby Orr or the 1980s.

Barkov is likely to miss the entirety of the 2025-26 regular season due to a training camp injury, but we're still including him in the spot he deserves to be in.

That's because, 1) he's one of the best players in the world, and 2) there's a chance he could still play this season in the playoffs.

Not only is he the best player on a team that's dominated the NHL over the past four years, but he's also one of the best players in the world.

He's a point-per-game player offensively and a ridiculously good defensive player who locks up the other team's best players. It's earned him back-to-back Selke Trophies and three in the past five years.

It's crazy to say about a guy who scores and produces the way Draisaitl does, but playing in the shadow of Connor McDavid has almost made it easy to overlook just how good he truly is.

Most organizations will never encounter a player like this, and if they do, it's likely only once.

The Oilers have had an embarrassment of riches in terms of world-class offensive players throughout their franchise history. It's probably made it easy for their fans to take it for granted when a guy like Draisaitl comes along.

He possesses a fantastic (and nearly unmatched) blend of elite finishing ability (scoring 50 goals in three of the past four seasons) and playmaking (notching at least 50 assists in each of the past seven seasons), which has enabled him to become one of the most dynamic offensive players in the sport.

What's really helped separate him from most of the NHL is that he's also improved his two-way play in recent years. The offense alone made him one of the top players in the world. Becoming a better all-around player only cemented his status in that spot.

When it comes to offensive impact, there is almost nothing MacKinnon does not excel in.

He can blow past defenders with ease when he gallops with the puck in full flight, he has a booming one-timer, is strong on the puck (and without it), and he can stickhandle his way through traffic like nobody is defending him.

He is mesmerizing to watch.

In terms of numbers, he has topped the 110-point mark in each of the past three seasons, and scored at that same pace in the three years prior to that run (2019-20 through 2021-22).

Had it not been for the pandemic and an injury-shortened 2021-22 season, he was on a pace to hit the 110-point mark in each of those campaigns.

During that six-year run, he has averaged 1.48 points per game (122 points per 82 games) and has consistently been one of the top three most impactful offensive players in the NHL.

There is just nobody in the NHL on McDavid's level offensively, or even close to it.

If he plays a full season, it's pretty much a lock he's going to win the scoring title, as he's already done five times in his career.

Outside of his rookie year, he's never finished lower than third in the league in points per game, and even if you include that rookie season, his 1.52 point-per-game average for his career is miles ahead of the next closest player.

Since the start of the 2015-16 season (McDavid's rookie season), nobody else in the NHL has averaged more than 1.36 points per game, while Nikita Kucherov is the only player who has averaged more than 1.26 points per game.

Just for some perspective: The gap between McDavid at No. 1 (1.52) and the No. 3 player on the list (Nathan MacKinnon at 1.26) is the same as the gap between the No. 3 player and the No. 26 player on our list (Jack Hughes).

While he is still searching for his first Stanley Cup, it's hard to put the lack of a championship on him. He's led the postseason in scoring in three of the past four years, and he has nearly matched his regular-season scoring output (on a per-game basis) in the playoffs. There's been no drop-off.

He's done his part, and along with Draisaitl, has helped elevate a flawed Oilers team to levels it probably shouldn't be reaching.

McDavid is the best player in the NHL right now and one of the best to ever play in the league. Finally getting that championship will only further validate that legacy.