Since we are (roughly) half-way through the season, I thought it would be a good time to see which players are the absolute "cream of the crop" for their positions (centre, wings, defense and goal). NOTE: this is going by their "listed positions" on NHL.com, not necessarily where they play the bulk of their ice-time.
Centre
McDavid
MacKinnon
Crosby
Matthews
Point
Bergeron
Scheifele
Eichel
Tavares
Barkov
HM: Monahan, Stamkos, Duchene, Lindholm
Wing
Kucherov
Rantenen
Gaudreau
Ovechkin
Marner
Pastrnak
P. Kane
Panarin
Wheeler
Skinner
HM: M. Tkachuck, Landeskog, Huberdeau, Kessel
Defense
Rielly
Burns
Giordano
Hedman
Letang
Chabot
Josi
Byfuglien
Carlson
E. Karlsson
HM: Yandle, Jones, Barrie, Suter
NOTE: I will totally admit that defense is the toughest here to order, particularly near the top. I think most people here have pretty similar top-5/top-10 lists but what you particularly value (passing, scoring, own-zone play ability to munch minutes) will shape how we order them.
Goaltending
Gibson
Rinne
Andersen
Bishop
Vasilevskiy
Lehner
DeSmith
Halak
Rittich
Fleury
HM: Hutton, Howard, Greiss, Dubnyk
NOTE: This is also a tough one to rank since beyond just sv% you also have to look at what team/blue line they are playing behind as well as their volume of work. I tried to avoid just going by "name brand" here. Work-horses get favor from he here.
So what do you guys think? What are your own mid-way of the season top-10 lists? If someone raises a convincing argument, I am totally willing to modify my lists; I admit, I don't regularly watch all 31 teams, so I might hve missed something here having just relied on the paper stats for a bunch of these guys.
Centre
McDavid
MacKinnon
Crosby
Matthews
Point
Bergeron
Scheifele
Eichel
Tavares
Barkov
HM: Monahan, Stamkos, Duchene, Lindholm
Wing
Kucherov
Rantenen
Gaudreau
Ovechkin
Marner
Pastrnak
P. Kane
Panarin
Wheeler
Skinner
HM: M. Tkachuck, Landeskog, Huberdeau, Kessel
Defense
Rielly
Burns
Giordano
Hedman
Letang
Chabot
Josi
Byfuglien
Carlson
E. Karlsson
HM: Yandle, Jones, Barrie, Suter
NOTE: I will totally admit that defense is the toughest here to order, particularly near the top. I think most people here have pretty similar top-5/top-10 lists but what you particularly value (passing, scoring, own-zone play ability to munch minutes) will shape how we order them.
Goaltending
Gibson
Rinne
Andersen
Bishop
Vasilevskiy
Lehner
DeSmith
Halak
Rittich
Fleury
HM: Hutton, Howard, Greiss, Dubnyk
NOTE: This is also a tough one to rank since beyond just sv% you also have to look at what team/blue line they are playing behind as well as their volume of work. I tried to avoid just going by "name brand" here. Work-horses get favor from he here.
So what do you guys think? What are your own mid-way of the season top-10 lists? If someone raises a convincing argument, I am totally willing to modify my lists; I admit, I don't regularly watch all 31 teams, so I might hve missed something here having just relied on the paper stats for a bunch of these guys.
