I’ve now gone through 100 forwards, 40 defensemen, and 35 goalies in my rankings. You can find all of those posts here. That means it’s time to put together a top 100 list! This will simply be a list without details on the players; you can read the details in my previous rankings posts. I’ll be writing a blurb on some risers and fallers for players that have moved significantly over the last couple weeks first before giving you that list. Let’s get to it!
RISERS
Erik Karlsson – The trade to the Sharks is a Godsend for Karlsson. He goes from the worst team in the league to now one of the league’s elite, so his potential plus-minus woes are all but erased. Some people are concerned for Karlsson and Burns that they’ll get in each other’s way, but I just don’t see it. They won’t be together at even strength, and their power play skills complement each other extremely well. Karlsson gets a big bump in my overall ratings while becoming the #2 defensemen behind his teammate.
Max Pacioretty – Another player traded from a bottom feeder to a quality team, Patches will slot in LW2 in Vegas. This is a great fit as his former linemate for USA, Paul Stastny, will be feeding him pucks. Stastny is a low volume shooter while Patches is high volume. It wouldn’t surprise me if Patches gets up to 300+ SOG again. There weren’t many better landing spots than Vegas for Pacioretty.
Mathew Barzal – I still don’t like the situation, but I simply had him too low. The talent is too high to keep him down where I had him. I don’t expect to own him, but I’m moving him up about 20 forward spots.
Colin Miller – It appears that Miller will get more time on the top power play unit this year, and the boost in minutes with Schmidt suspended will also help. He won’t make the top 100, but I feel much better about Miller being a strong #3 now.
Martin Jones – I’m not a big Jones fan but the wins should be much improved with Karlsson in the fold. I’m putting him back to low end #1 goalie status.
FALLERS
Corey Crawford – He’s still recovering from concussion symptoms which is simply awful. I wish him the best in his recovery. Crawford was amazing last season when on the ice, and the Blackhawks torpedoed when Crawford went down. The team is screwed while Crawford is out, but I have to drop Crawford about 5 spots with the potential that he goes further down if he’s not cleared soon.
Brendan Gallagher – See below
Mark Stone – Both of these guys lost quality teammates and now remain as the only elite forwards on their roster. I still like these guys despite being on horrible teams, but I have to slide them down a bit given that their floors have dropped.
TOP 100
1) Connor McDavid
2) Nikita Kucherov
3) Nathan MacKinnon
4) Brad Marchand
5) Alex Ovechkin
6) Sidney Crosby
7) Evgeni Malkin
8) Taylor Hall
9) Tyler Seguin
10) Auston Matthews
11) Steven Stamkos
12) Patrik Laine
13) Blake Wheeler
14) Jamie Benn
15) John Tavares
16) David Pastrnak
17) Jack Eichel
18) Brent Burns
19) Claude Giroux
20) Vladimir Tarasenko
21) Erik Karlsson
22) Evgeny Kuznetsov
23) Mark Scheifele
24) Victor Hedman
25) Andrei Vasilevskiy
26) Sergei Bobrovsky
27) Patrick Kane
28) Phil Kessel
29) Braden Holtby
30) Connor Hellebuyck
31) P.K. Subban
32) John Gibson
33) Patrice Bergeron
34) Filip Forsberg
35) Dustin Byfuglien
36) Pekka Rinne
37) Jakub Voracek
38) Vincent Trocheck
39) Jonathan Marchessault
40) Aleksander Barkov
41) Artemi Panarin
42) Tuukka Rask
43) Shayne Gostisbehere
44) Devan Dubnyk
45) Anze Kopitar
46) John Klingberg
47) Brock Boeser
48) Johnny Gaudreau
49) John Carlson
50) Jonathan Quick
51) Ben Bishop
52) Mitch Marner
53) Leon Draisaitl
54) Mikko Rantanen
55) Dougie Hamilton
56) Alex Pietrangelo
57) Frederik Andersen
58) Martin Jones
59) Alexander Radulov
60) Evander Kane
61) Max Pacioretty
62) Matt Murray
63) Kris Letang
64) Mathew Barzal
65) Dylan Larkin
66) Sean Couturier
67) Matthew Tkachuk
68) Marc-Andre Fleury
69) Roman Josi
70) Seth Jones
71) Mike Hoffman
72) Brayden Schenn
73) Nikolaj Ehlers
74) Antti Raanta
75) Carey Price
76) Viktor Arvidsson
77) Ryan Getzlaf
78) James van Riemsdyk
79) Drew Doughty
80) Ilya Kovalchuk
81) Mathew Dumba
82) Eric Staal
83) Nicklas Backstrom
84) Torey Krug
85) Corey Crawford
86) Philipp Grubauer
87) Rickard Rakell
88) Oliver Ekman-Larsson
89) Jeff Skinner
90) Jeff Carter
91) Jonathan Huberdeau
92) Sebastian Aho
93) Mikael Granlund
94) William Karlsson
95) Sean Monahan
96) Clayton Keller
97) Jake Allen
98) Keith Yandle
99) Joe Pavelski
100) Nico Hischier
That’s all for now guys. I am planning on launching the RCL Leagues in the next day or two along with finishing the top 200. I will make some slight adjustments over the next few weeks, and will try to get the rankings into chart form as the guys do for the other sports. As always, feel free to ask any questions or leave any comments below. Thanks for reading, take care!
