NHL Network will reveal its list of the top 20 defensemen in the League right now Wednesday when the second of a nine-part series debuts (NHLN, 6 p.m. ET).<\/p>\n
While we wait for that much-discussed annual list, NHL.com asked a panel of its writers to identify players who could join the top 20 list next season.<\/p>\n
Here is the NHL.com list:<\/p>\n
The 22-year-old led Kings defensemen last season with 33 points (five goals, 28 assists) in 78 games and he’s just starting to showcase his potential as a No. 1 defenseman. It was his first full NHL season and he averaged just 16:17 of ice time, sixth among Los Angeles defensemen. That total should go up this season following the departure of Vladislav Gavrikov<\/a>, and should include a spot on the top power play. Clarke’s skating and offensive skill have been evident since his junior hockey time, one of the reasons the Kings selected him with the No. 8 pick of the 2021 NHL Draft. But last season he showed some responsibility on the defensive side, including a plus-13 rating after being a minus-7 in 25 games the previous two seasons. That growth also will earn him more responsibility, and likely a spot among the top 20 defensemen in the NHL as soon as this season. — Adam Kimelman, deputy managing editor<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"NHL Network will reveal its list of the top 20 defensemen in the League right now Wednesday when…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":66125,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[433],"tags":[49,48,448,82],"class_list":["post-66124","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nhl","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-nhl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66124","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=66124"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66124\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/66125"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=66124"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=66124"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=66124"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}