Ranking The Top 5 Current NHL Players

[liamenator]

MacKinnon
McDavid
Marchand
Kucherov
Sam Bennett

[Scroopy Noopers]

Originally Posted by Oling_Roachinen

During Ovechkin's best seasons he sucked defensively too. He, like Yzerman before him, was also called poor leader - until he wasn't.

Is this the same Ovechkin who was screaming “don’t sleep bitch!” in Russian at his goalie the other night? Some leader.

[troutman]

Goalies and D-Men get no respect in these lists.

[Flashpoint]

1) Sam Bennett
2) TJ Brodie
3) Curtis Lazar
4) Alex Chiasson
5) Mark Jankowski

Edit - Forgot Dougie and Fox. Shoot.

[ForeverFlameFan]

Originally Posted by troutman

Goalies and D-Men get no respect in these lists.

That’s because there isn’t a top 5 goalie or top 5 D that trump the forwards.

[ricardodw]

They messed up the validity of the stats (counting the play-in games as playoff games) but since Vegas joined the league here is how the playoffs went

Team - GP - W
Tampa Bay Lightning - 52 - 33
Vegas Golden Knights - 53 - 31
Boston Bruins - 54 - 29
Washington Capitals - 44 - 22
Colorado Avalanche - 37 - 22
Dallas Stars - 40 - 22
New York Islanders - 36 - 21
St. Louis Blues - 39 - 18
San Jose Sharks - 30 - 16
Winnipeg Jets - 31 - 16
Carolina Hurricanes - 29 - 16
Nashville Predators - 29 - 12
Philadelphia Flyers - 22 - 12
Columbus Blue Jackets - 26 - 12
Toronto Maple Leafs - 24 - 11
Vancouver Canucks - 17 - 10
Pittsburgh Penguins - 26 - 9
Montréal Canadiens - 15 - 7
Calgary Flames - 15 - 6
Minnesota Wild - 15 - 5
Chicago Blackhawks - 9 - 4
Arizona Coyotes - 9 - 4
Florida Panthers - 10 - 3
Edmonton Oilers - 8 - 1
New Jersey Devils - 5 - 1
Anaheim Ducks - 4 - 0
New York Rangers - 3 - 0
Los Angeles Kings - 4 - 0

These playoff records eliminate McDavid, Matthews, Crosby, Kane from the top-5 players. To be the best you have to be the best and carry your team when the games are important.

[The Cobra]

Originally Posted by genetic_phreek

For me it's because their presence isn't as impactful as a forward. You strategize more on how to contain forwards from scoring because it's harder to do than to strategize on how to score against a specific dman when he's on the ice.

It's likely more the opposite. Hedman is likely more responsible for TB's success than any other player.

I doubt Chicago wins any Cups without Keith and his 30 minutes per game.

[The Cobra]

Originally Posted by ricardodw

These playoff records eliminate McDavid, Matthews, Crosby, Kane from the top-5 players. To be the best you have to be the best and carry your team when the games are important.

Saying a player is not great because his team stinks? Maybe you are the best and dragged a really bad team into the playoffs?

I think you will need to look at each situation differently.

[Flamesfan05]

Originally Posted by ricardodw

They messed up the validity of the stats (counting the play-in games as playoff games) but since Vegas joined the league here is how the playoffs went

Team - GP - W
Tampa Bay Lightning - 52 - 33
Vegas Golden Knights - 53 - 31
Boston Bruins - 54 - 29
Washington Capitals - 44 - 22
Colorado Avalanche - 37 - 22
Dallas Stars - 40 - 22
New York Islanders - 36 - 21
St. Louis Blues - 39 - 18
San Jose Sharks - 30 - 16
Winnipeg Jets - 31 - 16
Carolina Hurricanes - 29 - 16
Nashville Predators - 29 - 12
Philadelphia Flyers - 22 - 12
Columbus Blue Jackets - 26 - 12
Toronto Maple Leafs - 24 - 11
Vancouver Canucks - 17 - 10
Pittsburgh Penguins - 26 - 9
Montréal Canadiens - 15 - 7
Calgary Flames - 15 - 6
Minnesota Wild - 15 - 5
Chicago Blackhawks - 9 - 4
Arizona Coyotes - 9 - 4
Florida Panthers - 10 - 3
Edmonton Oilers - 8 - 1
New Jersey Devils - 5 - 1
Anaheim Ducks - 4 - 0
New York Rangers - 3 - 0
Los Angeles Kings - 4 - 0

These playoff records eliminate McDavid, Matthews, Crosby, Kane from the top-5 players. To be the best you have to be the best and carry your team when the games are important.

Lol that means Iginla was no good?

[ricardodw]

Originally Posted by Flamesfan05

Lol that means Iginla was no good?

81 playoff games that is not great but not shabby... He carried the Flames to 3 series wins.. and was a player with for 2 series wins with Pittsburgh and another 1 with Boston 6 series wins.

It is a criteria that Gio gets a FAIL on. No playoff series wins in his career 19 games 5 -14

[ricardodw]

Originally Posted by The Cobra

Saying a player is not great because his team stinks? Maybe you are the best and dragged a really bad team into the playoffs?

I think you will need to look at each situation differently.

There is a salary cap in the league ... Each team has the same resources. There is not that much difference in the 20 teams that spend to the cap. The best players being the best players gets you to the playoffs and wins the games.

Check the top scorers in the playoffs since 2018... no surprises here except maybe Rielly Smith


My theory is if you dropped a top-5 (Kucherov, Mackinnon, Hedman, Bergeron, Marchand, Hellebuyck) in the league player on the Flames instead of Gaudreau (or Gio) the Flames would make the playoffs more often and win some more series.

[The Cobra]

Originally Posted by ricardodw

There is a salary cap in the league ... Each team has the same resources. There is not that much difference in the 20 teams that spend to the cap. The best players being the best players gets you to the playoffs and wins the games.

Check the top scorers in the playoffs since 2018... no surprises here except maybe Rielly Smith

That’s just false.

Teams that spend to the cap are in varying growth timelines.

Kane has played for Chicago on the way up, in the middle, and in their declining years. His production has remained the same, although his teams performance has declined over the years.

Their is huge differences between teams that spend to the cap.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

[ricardodw]

Originally Posted by The Cobra

That’s just false.

Teams that spend to the cap are in varying growth timelines.

Kane has played for Chicago on the way up, in the middle, and in their declining years. His production has remained the same, although his teams performance has declined over the years.

Their is huge differences between teams that spend to the cap.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

You have a point. There are some really poorly managed team that do not get value for the money they spend. There would be 16 or so teams that at the start of the year are not that far off being a SC contender.

The Flames since they traded Iginla and Bouwmeester consistently have thought they were close to being a contender and if they had any cap space left at all they would tie it up for 4 years on a UFA rather than bringing in an ELC. There was always the hope that Gio, Gaudreau Monahan, Andersson, Tkachuk would be the top-5 player that would carry the team in the playoffs.

[powderjunkie]

Originally Posted by ricardodw

They messed up the validity of the stats (counting the play-in games as playoff games) but since Vegas joined the league here is how the playoffs went

Team - GP - W
Tampa Bay Lightning - 52 - 33
Vegas Golden Knights - 53 - 31
Boston Bruins - 54 - 29
Washington Capitals - 44 - 22
Colorado Avalanche - 37 - 22
Dallas Stars - 40 - 22
New York Islanders - 36 - 21
St. Louis Blues - 39 - 18
San Jose Sharks - 30 - 16
Winnipeg Jets - 31 - 16
Carolina Hurricanes - 29 - 16
Nashville Predators - 29 - 12
Philadelphia Flyers - 22 - 12
Columbus Blue Jackets - 26 - 12
Toronto Maple Leafs - 24 - 11
Vancouver Canucks - 17 - 10
Pittsburgh Penguins - 26 - 9
Montréal Canadiens - 15 - 7
Calgary Flames - 15 - 6
Minnesota Wild - 15 - 5
Chicago Blackhawks - 9 - 4
Arizona Coyotes - 9 - 4
Florida Panthers - 10 - 3
Edmonton Oilers - 8 - 1
New Jersey Devils - 5 - 1
Anaheim Ducks - 4 - 0
New York Rangers - 3 - 0
Los Angeles Kings - 4 - 0

These playoff records eliminate McDavid, Matthews, Crosby, Kane from the top-5 players. To be the best you have to be the best and carry your team when the games are important.

I don't totally disagree with you premise, but if you rewind 2 years further you can add 32 to Crosby. And go back another year to add 16 for Kane.


Also looking at that list - 7 teams have 20+ wins. Only 2 of them have cups. There isn't really anyone from VGK, DAL, or NYI in this conversation (and Hedman/Ovi only rarely mentioned)...

[genetic_phreek]

Originally Posted by genetic_phreek

I hate the Oilers more than anything but my list:

McDavid
Mackinnon
Kucherov
Marchand
Crosby

I look at if you take out Mackinnon, Kucherov, Marchand and replace them with McDavid on the team, or vice versa you put the latter on the Oilers, how good are the teams with McDavid vs how good are the Oilers with the other guys.

I'm revising my list.

MacKinnon
MacKinnons dad
MacKinnons mom
MacKinnons sister
MacKinnons dog

[topfiverecords]

Top five lists ranked 1-5. For shame. You all need to be punished.

[btimbit]

1 MacKinnon
2 Bergeron
3 McDavid
4 Crosby
5 Panarin


6 Josi
7 Ovechkin
8 Matthews
9 Pastrnak
10 Hedman

[Jaybo]

As we enter the Stanley Cup semi-finals, I decided to compile the various posts in this thread to try to crowd source who is the best player in the game.

I used a reverse rank scale so a #1 vote was worth 10 points, a #2 was 9 and so on downwards.

It was a bit tough as not everyone did a straight top five list (including myself who had a few different players "tied" in my #5 spot.).

Some posters made references to their picks in comments rather than in a ranked list so I debated how to handle this and other similar issues - only give everyone five votes? Split points for players ranked as tied or give each the same value (eg. if someone said MacKinnon and McDavid were tied in their view, should they both get 10 points or 5 each?)

So that's a long way to say this is not the most scientifically rigorous study (probably also a few human errors in my transcription on top of everything!)

But here's what I found:
#1 - MacKinnon (260 vote points)
#2 - McDavid (203 vote points)
#3 - Crosby (192 vote points)
#4 - Matthews (97 vote points)
#5 - Kucherov (80 vote points)
#6 - Bergeron (62 vote points)
#7 - Hedman (47 vote points)
#8 - Panarin (40 vote points)
#9 - Kane (36 vote points)
#10 - Barkov (20 vote points)
#11 - Marchand (19 vote points)
#12 - Ovechkin (18 vote points)
#13 - Draisital (12 vote points)

...then a whole bunch of players with less than 10 points who only got 1-2 low ranked mentions.