Connor McDavid remains the standard at the top of the NHL Network’s current player ranking, with the Edmonton Oilers captain taking No. 1 after another season that made the scoring race look like his private ice sheet. McDavid produced 138 points on 48 goals and 90 assists, collected his fifth Ted Lindsay Award, and added an Olympic MVP performance for the United States. Only Wayne Gretzky has won the players’ choice award five times.
McDavid recorded a point in 68 of his 82 appearances, posted 43 multi-point outings and had seven games with four points or more. His 20-game tear from Dec. 4 through Jan. 13 brought 46 points, including 19 goals. Since arriving in 2015-16, he has led the League in points (1,220), assists (811) and power-play production (418), while his 409 goals rank fifth over that span. The 29-year-old has reached 100 points in nine of 11 NHL seasons, with six Art Ross Trophies, three Hart Trophies, one Rocket Richard Trophy and a Conn Smythe Trophy on his résumé. That Conn Smythe came in 2024, when his 42 playoff points were the third-highest total for a single postseason despite Edmonton’s seven-game Stanley Cup Final loss to Florida. At the Olympics, McDavid led all skaters with 13 points in six games, scoring twice and setting up 11 more.
Nathan MacKinnon checked in at No. 2 after a 127-point Colorado season that included 53 goals, enough to win the Rocket Richard Trophy. MacKinnon added 74 assists in 80 games, finished League-best at plus-57, and has now cleared 111 points in four consecutive campaigns. His plus-146 rating across those four seasons also leads the NHL, and he has piled up 150 power-play points in that stretch. The 2024 Hart and Ted Lindsay winner has been a top-five Hart finalist in six of the past seven seasons. In the playoffs, his 1.30 points per game rank fifth in NHL history among players with at least 100 postseason games, behind Gretzky, Mario Lemieux, McDavid and Oilers teammate Leon Draisaitl.
Tampa Bay Lightning winger Nikita Kucherov lands at No. 3 following a 130-point season, his second-largest NHL total behind the 144 he put up in 2023-24. His 44 goals matched a career high, his plus-43 was another marker of a dominant year, and his League-leading 1.71 points per game helped carry him to a second Hart Trophy. He finished 10 voting points ahead of McDavid. Kucherov reached 1,000 NHL points with a two-assist night against Anaheim on Oct. 25, 2025, then became the second-fastest player born outside North America to reach 700 assists when he set up Gage Goncalves against Toronto on Feb. 25. He reached that assist milestone in 855 games; only Peter Stastny got there faster, in 784. Over the past three seasons, Kucherov leads the League with 270 assists, 395 points and 136 power-play points.
Colorado’s blue line and San Jose’s new centerpiece
Cale Makar is fourth after another high-end season from the Colorado blue line. The 27-year-old posted 20 goals and 59 assists for 79 points in 75 games, third among NHL defensemen, while his plus-40 even-strength goal differential ranked behind only Avalanche teammates Sam Malinski (plus-44) and Josh Manson (plus-41). Makar finished second in Norris Trophy voting and has been a finalist in each of his first six full award-eligible seasons, matching Bobby Orr as the only players to reach that mark six times in their first seven seasons. His 20-goal season was also his third in a row, making him the 11th defenseman to achieve it and the first since Phil Housley and Al MacInnis in the early 1990s. His secondary assist against Winnipeg on March 28 gave him 500 career points in 467 games, fourth-fastest by a defenseman behind Orr, Paul Coffey and Denis Potvin.
San Jose center Macklin Celebrini rose to No. 5 after a breakout campaign that pushed the Sharks forward even without a playoff berth. Now 20, Celebrini played all 82 games and nearly doubled his rookie point total, finishing with 115 points on 45 goals and 70 assists. He was fourth in NHL scoring, tied for fourth in goals and seventh in assists. The Sharks still missed the playoffs for a seventh straight year, but their 39 wins and 86 points were a major jump from the League-low 20 wins and 52 points in 2024-25. San Jose went 26-6-2 when Celebrini scored and 37-18-5 when he registered a point.
His five-year, $94 million contract signed July 29 made Celebrini the NHL’s highest-paid player by average annual value at $18.8 million. Internationally, he had five goals and five assists in six Olympic games for silver medalist Canada, earning an Olympic All-Star selection. He later captained Canada at the 2026 IIHF World Championship, producing 14 points in 10 games, winning best forward honors and being named IIHF Male Player of the Year.
Draisaitl is sixth after posting 97 points in just 65 games for Edmonton. Injuries limited his schedule, but not his influence: 35 goals, 62 assists, a 1.49-point average that ranked fourth in the League, and 42 power-play points, tied for third. The 30-year-old has scored at least 41 goals and 100 points in each of the past four seasons and has reached 50 goals four times. Since 2015-16, his 1,044 points rank second in the NHL behind McDavid, while his 432 goals are second only to Alex Ovechkin. His 177 power-play goals lead the League over that period. Draisaitl’s 37 playoff goals since 2022-23 are also the most in the NHL.
Two-way centers, milestone scorers and a franchise-changing trade
Aleksander Barkov ranks seventh despite missing the entire 2025-26 season through injury. His body of work remains difficult to ignore: Barkov recorded at least 20 goals and 50 points in 10 straight seasons from 2015 through 2025, while winning at least 53 percent of his faceoffs in eight consecutive years. The Florida captain had 71 points in 67 games in 2024-25, leading the Panthers to a second straight Stanley Cup. Across Florida’s back-to-back championship runs, he supplied 44 points in 47 playoff games. The Panthers’ all-time scoring leader with 782 points, Barkov owns three Selke Trophies and won the award in each of the last two seasons he played.
David Pastrnak is eighth and sits 67 points away from 1,000 for his career after another 100-point season in Boston. He scored 29 goals and added 71 assists for 100 points in 77 games, tying Martin Necas for seventh in the NHL. It was Pastrnak’s fourth consecutive 100-point campaign. The Czech winger recorded his 500th NHL assist in his 820th game on March 21 at Detroit, becoming the fourth-fastest Bruin to the milestone behind Orr, Phil Esposito and Ray Bourque. He was also the sixth Czechia-born player in League history to reach 500 assists. At the Olympics, Pastrnak had five points for Czechia, second on the team behind Necas’ eight.
Quinn Hughes sits ninth following a season split between Vancouver and Minnesota, one that turned sharply once the Wild acquired him on Dec. 12. Hughes finished with 76 points in 74 games, including seven goals and 69 assists, while leading all NHL defensemen at 27:44 per game. It was his fourth straight campaign with at least 75 points, a run previously managed only by Bourque, Coffey, Housley, Orr and Potvin among defensemen. Minnesota went 29-15-7 after the trade and rose to fifth in the NHL at 3.55 goals per game. Hughes had 53 points in 48 games as a Wild player, third among defensemen after the move.
The 26-year-old took on an even heavier workload in the playoffs, averaging 30:57 while collecting 15 points in 11 games to help Minnesota reach the Western Conference Second Round for the first time since 2015. His Olympic tournament for the United States brought eight points in six games, most on the team, plus recognition as the event’s best defenseman.
Vegas center Jack Eichel rounds out the top 10. After setting a career high with 94 points in 2024-25, Eichel led the Golden Knights with 90 points in 74 games last season, registering 27 goals and 63 assists. He logged 28 power-play points and led Vegas forwards at 21:12 per game, including a team-high 3:38 per night on the man advantage. His 1:21 average of short-handed ice time was second among Golden Knights forwards.
Eichel helped Vegas reach the Stanley Cup Final and finished second on the club in postseason scoring with 22 points in 22 games, including 20 assists. The 2023 Cup winner has 698 career points — 266 goals and 432 assists — in 690 NHL games, keeping him above a point-per-game pace. His international year included Olympic gold with the United States, where he finished with two goals and four assists in six games.
