It’s been called a golden era, this age of seemingly limitless skill and dizzying speed the National Hockey League is enjoying.
Records that stood for decades have crumbled. Benchmarks that signified greatness have begun to look commonplace. So, amid this new normal, it must be asked: If today’s game is truly pushing the sport to new ground, who’s leading the charge?
Who are the kings of the golden era?
We turned to our Sportsnet Insiders for an answer, asking them to rank the top 50 players in the NHL at this moment. If you take the young guns and the vets, the elite scorers and the Selke regulars, the high-flying defenders and the ever-reliable netminders, and stack them all up together, who comes out on top?
There was only one ground rule: This ranking is forward-looking. It doesn’t factor in legacy or stature in the game — it considers only how the league’s best are expected to perform in 2024-25. The overall ranking below is an amalgam of the Top 50 lists from Insiders across the network. For each Insider’s list, players were assigned points based on how high they finished in that particular ranking — the higher they ranked on an Insider’s list, the more points they accrued.
Each player’s position on the overall ranking is a result of how many total points they collected across all of the Insiders’ lists.
With that, here is Sportsnet’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
A half-decade into his big-league career, one thing is clear: Tim Stutzle is the talisman the Ottawa Senators have been waiting for. The dynamic pivot enters 2024-25 as the most prolific scorer of his draft class to this point. And only beginning to approach his prime, the 22-year-old has already flirted with greatness, putting the league on notice with a 39-goal, 90-point effort a year ago. A step backwards last season suggests there are still some growing pains to work through, but numbers aside, there’s no denying Stutzle has something every organization craves: the ability to make magic out on the ice, to pull fans out of their seats.
Nashville went all-in on Juuse Saros this summer, inking the 29-year-old to a deal that will take him to the cusp of his 40s and choosing the vet over young Yaroslav Askarov — the 2020 11th-overall pick who the Predators shipped to San Jose. You can trace Barry Trotz’s decision to a late-season run that pulled the Preds back into the 2024 playoff picture, including a 14-game stretch that saw Saros go 12-0-2 with a .932 save percentage. Now, the standout Finn has a chance to build off that strong finish, while playing behind a noticeably improved squad in 2024-25.
After eight years that saw him go from Sidney Crosby’s understudy to the captain’s most trusted accomplice to the gem of Pittsburgh’s offence, Jake Guentzel has struck out on his own. With a brief spell in Carolina behind him, the 29-year-old will begin a campaign dressed in something other than black-and-gold for the first time in his career. But heading into his first season in Tampa Bay, where he’ll don the crest of an Eastern Conference powerhouse for the third time in his career, little figures to change for the 40-goal threat in terms of the calibre of talent around him. He’ll have a Steven Stamkos-shaped hole to fill in the offence, but Guentzel has enough high-end hockey sense to give the Bolts what they expect of him.
The arc of Nick Suzuki’s career in Montreal has mirrored his club’s trajectory as a whole over the past five years — slow and steady progress, incremental growth, pointing towards something promising. The young Habs captain has upped his offensive production each year he’s been in the league. But in Year 5, he seemed to truly turn a corner and show some crucial growth, building off his dynamic skill by squaring off with the best opposing clubs have to offer, shutting down All-Stars, and winning the tough minutes out on the sheet — earning some Selke Trophy votes for the first time in his career. A new season brings a new opportunity to raise his level again, and to continue establishing himself among the game’s premier two-way talents.
There are two versions of the ideal defenceman. One is the type we see dominating the Norris Trophy debate each year: the high-flying, highlight-reel rovers, who stack points with the best of them. The other is Jaccob Slavin. Considered one of the game’s most underrated players for so long it started to feel like an inside joke, the veteran rearguard has made his name as one of the all-time shutdown defenders. He can put up points too, but what makes Slavin elite isn’t found on the scoresheet — it’s in what he keeps off it. The rangy defenceman is a wet blanket for the game’s most prolific scorers, spoiling the fun like few others can.
Fresh off what seemed to be a breakthrough moment, Jeremy Swayman sits on the doorstep of what could be the most important campaign of his career. After serving as one half of the game’s most dominant netminding tandem for the past few years, Swayman went out and wrestled away the No. 1 role for himself during the post-season. So convincing was the 25-year-old, the B’s shipped 2023 Vezina Trophy winner Linus Ullmark off to Ottawa. Now, with the fate of the Bruins’ net resting squarely on his shoulders, and a contract dispute dragging on longer than expected, the pressure will be on Boston’s unequivocal starter to prove he can lead.
For years, Mathew Barzal has seemed just a few steps from putting it all together — the breakneck speed, the limitless skill — and pushing himself into the league’s highest echelon. But plying his trade on a squad built squarely around responsible team defence, the breakout never fully came… until last year, when Patrick Roy arrived in town, turned the dial up to 11, and helped spur Barzal on to his first point-per-game campaign since he was a rookie. With a full season under the guidance of a bench boss intent on unleashing his lead horse in a high-tempo, high-energy system — and with a new offensively gifted linemate to work with — Barzal enters 2024-25 primed for another step towards greatness.
Sergei Bobrovsky finally slayed the dragon. It took a decade-and-a-half of tumult, stretches of brilliance between the pipes dotted with head-scratching blunders, but then came the past two campaigns — twin trips backstopping his Panthers to the Stanley Cup Final. To man the cage en route to a championship is one thing. To do so with Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl firing everything they have at you? That’s entirely another. There’s no question Father Time is going to come calling soon, but for now, the 36-year-old is playing his best hockey in years.
Roope Hintz can only fly under the radar for so long. And after the past few campaigns he’s strung together, the talented Finn seems on a collision course with the spotlight. Twice in the past three seasons, Hintz has finished a stone’s throw from the 40-goal plateau. A year ago, he proved to be built for the post-season, pacing Dallas with a 24-point, 19-game outburst that truly put his name up in lights. And then came last season, when Hintz planted his flag among the game’s best two-way practitioners and earned a respectable collection of Selke votes as a result. Though he seems to be approaching Aleksander Barkov levels of perennial-underrated-status, Hintz heads into 2024-25 squarely in his prime, pushing a dangerous Stars team forward.
Few stars of Brad Marchand’s ilk have undergone the type of on-ice transformation the Bruins veteran has over the course of his career — from irksome pugilist to century scorer, from controversy courter to veteran captain. After a late-career renaissance that saw a 30-year-old Marchand seemingly reach his final form — an agitator who could stack 100 points between calls from the Department of Player Safety — the past two seasons have seen the longtime Bruin slow down some. Still, his skill remains undeniable, and a 67-point effort at age 35 shows he’s got plenty left to give. Heading into the final season of his current deal, and inching closer to his 40s, the last remaining leader of this Bruins era’s old guard surely has his sights set on hanging another banner before all is said and done.
Check back Tuesday for Nos. 40-31 on Sportsnet’s ranking of the Top 50 Players in the NHL.
