After presenting to you my Top 30 left wingers and my Top 30 right wingers, it’s time to polish off the forwards with the fellas up the middle.
Once again keep in mind that these rankings are for points-only leagues. As common as head-to-head and rotisserie leagues are, the points-only leagues are still king. And points (goals + assists) are categories used in all formats – something that can’t be said about PIM, SOG, Hits, blocks, PPPts, etc. So even head-to-head and rotisserie leaguers will find value in this.
Also keep in mind that I’m going to assign players to the position I see them in. So, you won’t see Jeff Carter (for example) on both C and RW lists, only C. And finally, I pulled these directly from my Top 300 rankings list. This is a ranking I’ve done monthly for years and you’ll see them on Sportsnet.ca on the first of every month.
| RK | Player | Team | Rating |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Sidney Crosby | PIT | 191.0 |
| 2 | John Tavares | NYI | 173.7 |
| 3 | Connor McDavid | EDM | 168.6 |
| 4 | Evgeni Malkin | PIT | 162.0 |
| 5 | Tyler Seguin | DAL | 151.9 |
| 6 | Steven Stamkos | TBL | 147.0 |
| 7 | Claude Giroux | PHI | 138.5 |
| 8 | Nicklas Backstrom | WAS | 134.7 |
| 9 | Ryan Getzlaf | ANA | 133.3 |
| 10 | Tyler Johnson | TBL | 121.8 |
| 11 | Jonathan Toews | CHI | 114.0 |
| 12 | Nathan MacKinnon | COL | 113.3 |
| 13 | Anze Kopitar | LAK | 112.1 |
| 14 | Ryan Johansen | CBJ | 109.3 |
| 15 | Jack Eichel | BUF | 107.0 |
| 16 | Ryan Nugent-Hopkins | EDM | 105.3 |
| 17 | Matt Duchene | COL | 104.0 |
| 18 | Sean Monahan | CGY | 100.3 |
| 19 | Derek Stepan | NYR | 95.5 |
| 20 | Logan Couture | SJS | 95.4 |
| 21 | Ryan Strome | NYI | 94.2 |
| 22 | Joe Pavelski | SJS | 94.0 |
| 23 | Joe Thornton | SJS | 93.3 |
| 24 | Eric Staal | CAR | 91.7 |
| 25 | Mark Scheifele | WPG | 89.0 |
| 26 | Kyle Turris | OTT | 84.7 |
| 27 | Henrik Sedin | VAN | 84.5 |
| 28 | Evgeny Kuznetsov | WAS | 82.9 |
| 29 | Derick Brassard | NYR | 82.4 |
| 30 | Henrik Zetterberg | DET | 81.3 |
Notes
• Two players on this list who are the top candidates to drop in ranking by November are Staal and Kuznetsov.
• Two players who are top candidates to rise in the ranking by November are McDavid and Eichel. They won’t take long to make their mark.
• This week’s “could go either way” award winner is MacKinnon. Poolies are a fickle group. MacKinnon has tremendous talent and upside, but another disastrous season like last year would hammer his value downward pretty quickly. On the other hand, if he surges to his potential in 2015-16 he’ll easily become a top 10 player here.
• Just off the list: Bryan Little (WPG), Ryan O’Reilly (BUF), Jeff Carter (LAK), David Backes (STL) and Jason Spezza (DAL).
• Pavel Datsyuk (DET) also just missed the cut. This is because he’s going to miss the first month of the season, which hurts his immediate value. And by 2016-17, he’ll be 37 years old. Regardless of whether you believe he’ll still have gas in the tank – or if I believe he’ll still have gas in the tank – your fellow GMs won’t fully believe it and they’ll play the “age” card in any trade talks.
• A repeat of 2014-15 would result in Stepan and Brassard pretty much swapping places on this list. Brassard has the advantage of better linemates, so it will be interesting.
• The Florida kids, Aleksander Barkov and Nick Bjugstad, rank 39th and 40th respectively.
Follow Dobber on Twitter (@DobberHockey), and as the perfect supplement to your Sportsnet Fantasy Guide check out Dobber’s 10th annual Fantasy Guide here.
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