Prior to the start of this season, The Hockey News released their list of the best 50 NHL players right now. Forgive us for being late but we just got around to analyzing it. Jack Hughes came in at No. 17. Potential seems a few ticks too low. Maybe likely his injury shortened season knocked him down a few places from where we would expect him to be.
With that being said, Jack Hughes was the highest rated New Jersey Devils player. Who was second highest? Nobody, no other Devils player made the list. Yes, last year was a down year as the team missed the playoffs. Also some players we would expect to contend for a spot on the list missed significant time. Not having even one more representative on the list was still a bit surprising.
Who Do We Thinking Missed Out?
The three players on the team who most had a chance at a list such as this would be Nico Hischier, Jesper Bratt, and Dougie Hamilton, no surprises there. Hischier and Hamilton both missed length period of the season with injury. Hischier played in 71 games last season and scored 67 points (27 goals and 40 assists). Hamilton only saw 20 games of action before a season injury pectoral injury. As much as we love our star defenseman who moonlights as the team’s social admin, only playing in 20 games would disqualify almost anyone.
Bratt was the team’s top scorer in an All-Star season playing in all 82 games and scoring 83 points. Being underrated has been Bratt’s “M.O.” for pretty much his whole career. His health and consistency should have been enough to at the least put him on the short list for the top 50. Maybe if this list was a “top 60” he would have made it.
To make this interesting, we went to Hockey Reference and looked at the players Bratt was compared to through their “similarity scores. None of the active players Bratt was compared to ended up on the top-50 list either. Adrian Kempe was most compatible to Bratt in the “Adjusted Point Shares” category for their whole career was left off the list and could probably put together a similar argument as to why they should be included. Kempe lead his team with 75 points in 77 games during the 2023-2024 season.
What About Nico and Dougie?
Okay, since we look at player comparisons for Bratt we might as well see if any of the player comparisons for Hischier or Dougie made the list. Victor Hedman of the Tampa Bay Lightning showed up on Hamilton’s “adjusted point shares (best to worst),” in the “through 13 years” category. Hedman is perennially ranked and listed this year at No. 26. As for Hischier, Brady Tkachuk was listed on his career “adjusted point shares (best to worst),” list and was ranked at No. 48. Mitch Marner, who Hischier shared a Selke trophy nomination with in 2022-2023, was listed at No. 28.
How The Rest Of The Division Stacked Up
Not surprisingly, the New York Rangers had the most players out of the Metropolitan Division make the list with three players. Artemi Panarin made the top ten (No. 10) with Adam Fox just outside at No. 12 and goaltender Igor Shesterkin directly behind him at No. 13.
The Carolina Hurricanes and New York Islanders had two selections apiece with Sebastian Aho (No. 20) and Jaccob Slavin (No. 37) for Carolina and Noah Dobson (No. 30) and Matt Barzal (No. 35) for the Islanders. The Pittsburgh Penguins had Sidney Crosby ranked 14th overall.
Luke Hughes On The List Sooner Than Later?
Even if he was a Calder Trophy nominee nobody expected Luke Hughes to make the list in his rookie season. He is likely not making it in his second season either. With Jack at No. 17 and other brother, Quinn, in the top 10 at No. 9 (second-highest ranked defenseman after Cale Makar) the Hughes pipeline seems strong. Can we see three Hughes on the list in a couple seasons?