- Nikita Kucherov is back at No. 1 in the High Noon forward rankings for the first time since 2019
- Nathan MacKinnon lands second and Connor McDavid slides to third
- Read below for the biggest risers, the steepest falls, and where Crosby and Ovechkin landed
Nikita Kucherov is the best forward in hockey again, and it took him seven years to get back there.
Paul Pidutti released the third annual High Noon rankings at Daily Faceoff on Wednesday, and the Lightning winger sits on top with a score of 14.2. His last turn at No. 1 came in 2019.
MacKinnon is right behind him at 13.9. McDavid comes in third at 13.3, which is a strange place to find a player who just won the scoring title with 138 points and finished eight clear of Kucherov.
Leon Draisaitl, who held the top spot a year ago, drops to fourth. Macklin Celebrini jumps into fifth.
Take a look at the season that put Kucherov back in front:
His age is the part that stands out. Kucherov is coming off his age-32 season, and no forward had held the No. 1 spot that late in his career since Mario Lemieux did it in 2002 at 36.
The system runs on a weighted three-year average built from box score numbers, with last season counting for half the score. Over that window, Kucherov has been the most productive forward in the league by a decent margin.
| Last 3 Seasons | GP | G | A | PTS | PTS/82 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. Nikita Kucherov | 235 | 125 | 270 | 395 | 138 |
| 2. Nathan MacKinnon | 241 | 136 | 247 | 383 | 130 |
| 3. Connor McDavid | 225 | 106 | 264 | 370 | 135 |
Kucherov has led the NHL in points per game in each of the last three seasons. MacKinnon’s 136 goals over the same stretch lead everybody.
Pidutti was clear that the ranking measures output, not who he would draft. Asked to build a team for one season, he wrote that he would still lean toward a rested 29-year-old McDavid over two wingers in their thirties.
Celebrini is the story further down. The Sharks center climbed 79 spots to No. 5, and the change that got him there was a methodology tweak: players in their first three NHL seasons are now scored entirely on the most recent year instead of building a number slowly.
Here is what that one season looked like:
Cutter Gauthier posted the biggest jump of anyone, rising 115 spots to No. 33. Teammate Leo Carlsson moved up 93 to No. 43, and Connor Bedard climbed 90 to No. 29.
Martin Necas rounds out the five biggest risers, up 40 spots to No. 15 with Colorado.
Mitch Marner took the roughest fall of the group. He dropped 15 spots to No. 27 after his seven-year run of point-per-game hockey ended in Vegas, with Pidutti pointing to how rarely Marner factored into the Golden Knights power play compared to his Toronto years.
Tage Thompson slid from No. 23 to No. 36 even with another 40-goal season. Auston Matthews went from seventh to 11th.
Two faces of the last 20 years are still on the board. Sidney Crosby sits 25th and Alex Ovechkin is 38th, both a long way from the top and both still ahead of most of the league. Ovechkin’s chase of 1,000 goals is its own math problem, which we broke down in this look at whether he can get there.
Nico Hischier was the first man out at No. 51, followed by Roope Hintz, Lucas Raymond, Bryan Rust and Logan Cooley. Aleksander Barkov did not play last season, and his score would have slotted him 29th.
McDavid owns six Art Ross Trophies and a chance to break his tie with Gordie Howe and Mario Lemieux this season. Kucherov owns the last three years of production, and production is the only thing High Noon counts.
