Sportsnet’s Insiders rank the NHL’s top 50 players in 2025-26: 50-41

As a new NHL campaign arrives, so too do the familiar questions, predictions and prognostications.

Who will dominate the league this time around, staking their claim on a bit of history? Who among the sportâ€s most prolific talents will push their level higher and carry their clubs with them? Which standouts from the next generation will step into the spotlight, prove they can hang, and push the vets off the throne?

We turned to our Sportsnet Insiders for their insight, asking them to rank the top 50 players in the NHL at this moment. Not the top scorers or the top defenders, the top two-way talents or the top netminders — simply the gameâ€s best. All positions, all skill-sets, one list.

There was only one rule: As with last yearâ€s list, this ranking is forward-looking. It doesnâ€t factor in legacy or past performance. It considers only how the leagueâ€s best are expected to stack up against each other in 2025-26.

The ranking below is an amalgam of the top 50 lists from Insiders across the network. For each individual list, players were assigned points based on how high they finished in that particular ranking — the higher they ranked on an Insiderâ€s list, the more points they accrued. Each playerâ€s position on the overall ranking is a result of how many total points they collected across all of our Insiders†lists. 

With that, here is Sportsnetâ€s ranking of the Top 50 Players in the NHL, starting with Nos. 50-41.

50-41 | 40-31 | 30-21 | 20-11 | 10-1

The Montreal Canadiens†blue-line phenom put the league on notice in Year 1. Taking little time to find his footing in his first full NHL campaign, Lane Hutson racked up 66 points from the back end in 2024-25, earning the Calder Trophy for his efforts. His season wound up as one of the most prolific ever seen from a rookie NHL defender — only three others have ever amassed more points in their debut campaign, and no rookie defenceman has ever put up more assists than the 66 Hutson collected. Now comes the real test. After taking the league by storm in his first go-round, can he follow in the footsteps of fellow all-world offensive defenders Quinn Hughes and Cale Makar and do it all again? 

After nearly a decade in Pittsburgh as one of the most underrated snipers in the game, Jake Guentzel delivered in his first campaign as a member of the Tampa Bay Lightning. Finding instant chemistry with Bolts maestro Nikita Kucherov, Guentzel potted a career-best 41 goals and finished with the second 80-point effort of his career, re-establishing himself as one of the gameâ€s most consistent scorers. He made his presence especially known on the man-advantage, leading the league with 17 power-play markers. The 30-year-old also led Tampa in scoring through their brief playoff bout with the eventual champs. Thereâ€s little doubt Guentzel can put pucks in the net again in 2025-26 — the real question is whether he can help propel the Lightning back into the latter rounds of the post-season.

For most of the hockey world, the introduction to Thomas Harley came in February, when the young defender was thrown into the chaos of the 4 Nations Face-Off, called up as an injury replacement for Team Canada after mainstays Makar and Shea Theodore were sidelined. The 23-year-old met the moment and helped Canada claim gold. The situation was much the same for his club team. Thrust into a central role for Dallas with star defender Miro Heiskanen sidelined, Harley came up with a breakout campaign, putting up 50 points in the regular season before a sterling playoff run that saw him lead the team in ice-time (skating just under 26 minutes per night) and finish second in team scoring (with 14 points through 18 games). In the running for a spot on Canadaâ€s Olympic blue-line, all eyes will be on Harley to build on that breakout with another year of progress in 2025-26.

Rewind a half-decade and Jesper Bratt was something of a fringe option in New Jersey. A sixth-round pick in 2016, he’d found his way in the first four years of his career by establishing himself as a solid depth contributor. Then came the breakout, a 2021-22 campaign that saw Bratt shatter his career highs with 26 goals and 73 points. Three years later, heâ€s only getting better, the 27-year-old coming off a career-best 88-point season for the Devils. Watch a handful of Brattâ€s shifts and there should be little mystery here: the smooth-skating Swede has made his name as one of the most dynamic offensive talents in the game. While Jack Hughes remains the Devils†talisman, itâ€s Bratt whoâ€s led the team in scoring three out of the past four seasons as Hughes has navigated injury trouble. As the Devils look to take a step following last yearâ€s return to the playoffs, Bratt figures to remain their offensive engine.

The 2024-25 campaign ended in tumult for Jake Oettinger. Despite a solid regular season that saw him win the third-most games in the league and a promising post-season start that saw him lead Dallas through two rounds — taking down two of the Westâ€s best in Colorado and Winnipeg — the lasting image from the year will be Oettinger leaving the ice seven minutes into Game 5 of the Conference Finals against Edmonton, the netminder pulled by then-head coach Pete DeBoer after allowing two goals on two shots to start the tilt. DeBoerâ€s handling of the situation, during the game and afterwards, led to his eventual dismissal. But beyond the issue of whether pulling Oettinger was the right call — the Oilers scored four more that night and clinched the series win anyways — or whether it couldâ€ve been handled differently, the real question is how Oettinger moves on from the embarrassing moment. Entering the first season of a new eight-year, $66-million deal, the 26-year-old will be expected to refocus and continue pushing to join the leagueâ€s upper echelon of goaltenders.

The move to Salt Lake City did wonders for Clayton Keller. After three years of progress in Arizona, the 2016 seventh-overall pick put up his finest offensive campaign yet in Utah, a 90-point effort that had him just outside the leagueâ€s top 10 scorers. The versatile 27-year-old was especially effective on the power-play, putting up 37 man-advantage points — just a hair behind Nathan MacKinnon and not far off Kucherov for tops league-wide — and playing a crucial role in pulling Utahâ€s power-play unit into the leagueâ€s top 10. The Utah captain carried his form to the international stage too, captaining Team USA to its first world championship gold since 1960 in May. After a wild season spent adjusting to a new city, a new fanbase, and a new ownership group, Keller and the rest of his squad now get a chance to enter a new year with some much-needed stability. With new talent joining the ranks this summer, the next step for the young playmaker is to spur Utah on to the first playoff berth in the franchiseâ€s new home.

Itâ€s a fair bet The Great Eight wonâ€t soon forget 2024-25. After a middling 2023-24 campaign that saw Alex Ovechkin post the second-fewest goals of his career, the veteran reasserted his dominance last season, putting up 44 goals and 73 points by the seasonâ€s end. The 42nd of those tallies also happened to be goal No. 895 of his career, moving the 40-year-old past Wayne Gretzky and into hallowed territory as the gameâ€s all-time leading goal-scorer. The question for Caps fans moving forward is what exactly the captain looks like with that lofty goal now in the rearview. His club put up its finest season in years as Ovechkin chased history, winning the Metropolitan Division title for the first time in half a decade, but left much to be desired in the post-season. Can Ovi turn back the clock once more in 2025-26, as his Caps push for a deeper run?

Itâ€s a rite of passage for the gameâ€s up-and-coming stars — having to navigate the balance between promising individual success and crushing team failures. Drafted first-overall in 2024 and brought to San Jose to be the Sharks†new hope, Macklin Celebrini showed glimpses of future greatness in Year 1, collecting 25 goals and 63 points in the big leagues. It wasn’t his totals that turned heads, though — Celebrini finished tied with Matvei Michkov for second in the rookie scoring race, behind Hutson — it was the poise and dynamism the 19-year-old showed on the NHL stage. His Sharks were less impressive, winning just 20 games and posting a league-worst goal differential of -105. Celebrini seemed more and more comfortable at the big-league level as the season wore on. Now, with the slate wiped clean and some more talent added to the Sharks†lineup, the question is just how much Celebrini can raise his level in Year 2, and just how far he can push San Jose.

Itâ€s been a tumultuous few years for Tage Thompson. After a career-best 47-goal, 94-point campaign in 2022-23, the Buffalo Sabres pivot took a step backwards in 2023-24, finishing with just 56 points. But last year saw something of a return to form for the 27-year-old as Thompson rebounded with 44 goals and 72 points, tying Ovechkin for third place in the Rocket Richard race. Strip away the special-teams noise and Thompson was even more dominant compared to his contemporaries: at even-strength, the rangy Sabres veteran led the league with 37 goals. Finding any sense of consistency while playing for a franchise stuck on a rollercoaster is no small feat. But for the Sabres to finally end their decade-and-a-half-long playoff drought, another season of offensive dominance from No. 72 is a must.

There might not be a more underrated top-tier scorer in the game than Robert Thomas. While the St. Louis Blues have endured their own rollercoaster ride of late — going from quiet contender to missing the playoffs altogether, before pulling out a resurgent 2024-25 effort to get back to the dance — Thomas has continued to raise his own level. The 26-year-old is coming off back-to-back 80-point seasons, but it was in late November, once Jim Montgomery took the Blues†reins, that Thomas truly hit his stride. From Dec. 1 on, the St. Louis centreman was a top-five scorer in the league, his production from that point sitting level with Mitch Marnerâ€s. From mid-March to the end of the regular season, he was the No. 1 scorer in the game. Thomas played a crucial role in pulling the Blues back into the playoff picture — now, with a full training camp under Montgomery and a steadier start to the campaign, heâ€ll be expected to guide them back there again, and push them even further this time.

Check back Tuesday for Nos. 40-31.

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