The NHL’s 2026-27 campaign is days away, and with the arrival of the new season comes the latest iteration of our Sportsnet Insiders’ ranking of the game’s 50 best players.

A familiar cast of big-league phenoms led the pack once again, with Connor McDavid, Nathan MacKinnon, Nikita Kucherov, and Leon Draisaitl all near the top of the pile, while young Macklin Celebrini jumped into the top five this time around, too.

The young San Jose Sharks captain had the highest leap of anyone in the 2026 rankings compared to last year, rising from No. 43 on 2025’s list to No. 4 this year. On the other side, Winnipeg’s Kyle Connor had the largest drop, slipping from No. 15 last year to No. 44 on the 2026 rankings.

With the new season on the horizon, let’s take a look at a few other trends and interesting oddities from our 2026 rankings:

Eleven players cracked our Insiders’ 2026 list after going unranked in 2025:

Matthew Schaefer (No. 19)

On the other side, these 11 players made last year’s list but fell out of the top 50 in 2026:

Sam Reinhart (No. 18 last year)

Victor Hedman (No. 22 last year)

Sebastian Aho (No. 33 last year)

Josh Morrissey (No. 34 last year)

Sergei Bobrovsky (No. 35 last year)

Adam Fox (No. 37 last year)

Robert Thomas (No. 41 last year)

Alex Ovechkin (No. 44 last year)

Jake Oettinger (No. 46 last year)

Jesper Bratt (No. 47 last year)

Thomas Harley (No. 48 last year)

Tampa Bay had more players represented in the Top 50 than any other club

The Bolts had five players make the rankings this year: Kucherov (No. 3), Andrei Vasilevskiy (No. 27), Brandon Hagel (No. 40), Brayden Point (No. 41), Jake Guentzel (No. 46).

The Dallas Stars were second, with four players represented: Mikko Rantanen (No. 17), Jason Robertson (No. 21), Miro Heiskanen (No. 22), Wyatt Johnston (No. 36).

And five clubs each had three players represented in the Top 50: the Oilers, Avalanche, Wild, Panthers, and Canadiens

But Edmonton and Colorado had the most players represented in the rankings’ upper echelon

The Oilers and Avalanche each had two players in the top 10: McDavid (No. 1) and Draisaitl (No. 5) from Edmonton, and Nathan MacKinnon (No. 2) and Cale Makar (No. 6) in Denver.

Zooming out to the top 25, Minnesota and Dallas each had three players in the top half of the rankings (Quinn Hughes, Kirill Kaprizov and Matt Boldy from the Wild; Rantanen, Robertson and Heiskanen from the Stars)

The centre position dominated the rankings’ top 10

Four pivots made their way into the top section of the rankings (McDavid, MacKinnon, Celebrini and Eichel), along with Draisaitl, who can play both in the middle and on the wing.

The positional breakdown for the rest of the top 10 saw two right wingers crack the list (Kucherov and David Pastrnak), and three defencemen (Makar, Hughes and Zach Werenski).

The highest-ranked goalie on the list slotted in at No. 27

Tampa Bay’s Vasilevskiy — the reigning Vezina Trophy winner — took that No. 27 spot on the 2026 rankings. Three other netminders cracked the top 50: Connor Hellebuyck (No. 28), Igor Shesterkin (No. 35), and Ilya Sorokin (No. 39).

Last year, the highest-ranked goalie on the rankings was Hellebuyck at No. 24, fresh off his dominant Hart-winning, Vezina-winning campaign. The 2025 rankings saw four others make the overall list: Shesterkin (No. 27), Vasilevskiy (No. 31), Sergei Bobrovsky (No. 35), and Jake Oettinger (No. 46).

Sam Reinhart finished at No. 51 as the highest-ranked player who just missed the top 50

The 10 next players who just missed out on the top 50 in terms of the overall points they accrued from all of the Insiders’ lists (in order of ranking from Nos. 52-60):

The top 19 players in the rankings were submitted on every single Insider list

Those players are: McDavid, MacKinnon, Kucherov, Celebrini, Draisaitl, Makar, Hughes, Pastrnak, Eichel, Werenski, Kaprizov, Aleksander Barkov, Sidney Crosby, Nick Suzuki, Auston Matthews, Rasmus Dahlin, Rantanen, and Mitch Marner

On the other side, 13 players were each submitted on only one Insider list

Those players: Bo Horvat, Jesper Wallstedt, Mika Zibanejad, Alex DeBrincat, Zach Hyman, Alex Ovechkin, Jesper Bratt, Filip Forsberg, Lucas Raymond, Shea Theodore, Devon Toews, Roman Josi, and Victor Hedman