Today: the league’s top ten at the center position.
Connor McDavid – Edmonton Oilers
Season 2022-23: Matches: 82, Goals: 64, Assists: 89, Points: 153
There was no talk at the NHL Awards in Nashville on June 26. The Edmonton Oilers won both the Ted Lindsay Award and the Hart Trophy and can call themselves the league’s best and most valuable player. But then it’s not so strange either. Last season, McDavid surpassed himself by scoring 153 points (64+89) during the regular season. He thus won both the scoring league and the shooting league in magnificent style.
The icing on the cake would have been a Stanley Cup, but the center will have to wait a while longer.
Video: EDM-ANA: McDavid scores his 62nd goal of the season
Leon Draisaitl – Edmonton Oilers
Season 2022-23: Matches: 80, Goals: 52, Assists: 76, Points: 128
Leon Draisaitl would have been the biggest star on any other team. In the Oilers, however, he plays second fiddle behind Connor McDavid. But it is not something that the German cares about, quite the opposite. Together, the duo is perhaps the best in the entire NHL. Draisaitl has scored 50 goals in two consecutive seasons (55 and 52) and has now reached the 50-point plateau three times in his career.
Draisaitl and McDavid give Edmonton a luxury no other team can boast.
Sidney Crosby – Pittsburgh Penguins
Season 2022-23: Matches: 82, Goals: 33, Assists: 60, Points: 93
The years pass, but Sidney Crosby remains. Despite the fact that the Penguins captain passed 35, he remains his team’s most important player. The key seems to be the passion for the sport and the hunger to constantly improve. It resulted in him last season, the center’s 18th in the NHL, scoring 93 points (33+60) in 82 games). He has passed 1,500 points and after the playoff miss last spring, he is said to be extremely hungry for revenge when 2023-24 starts in October.
Video: PIT-NSH: Crosby decides in overtime – reaches 1400 points
Nathan MacKinnon – Colorado Avalanche
Season 2022-23: Matches: 71, Goals: 42, Assists: 69, Points: 111
Nathan MacKinnon is constantly being compared to McDavid, and the powerful center isn’t too far behind. Last season he was again one of the best in the league and for the first time in his career he passed 100 points.
Since Colorado team captain Gabriel Landeskog is long-term injured, he also has an even more important role right now. A role he truly lives up to.
Auston Matthews – Toronto Maple Leafs
Season 2022-23: Matches: 74, Goals: 40, Assists: 45, Points: 85
Auston Matthews could become the Alex Ovechkin of his generation. There is a lot to indicate that, although he may not get the same number of goals as Ovechkin. But by age 25, Ovechkin had scored 269 goals in 396 games. Matthews was hot on the heels with 259 goals in 407 games.
Matthews enters the 2023-24 season on 299 goals in 481 games. He made 40 last season, 20 fewer than the season before, but he’s only been under that mark twice in his seven-year NHL career.
Video: TOR-FLA: Matthews gives Maple Leafs lead
Tage Thompson – Buffalo Sabres
Season 2022-23: Matches: 78, Goals: 47, Assists: 47, Points: 94
Last season was Tage Thompson’s big breakthrough in the NHL. More confidence and ice time also resulted in more points. The 25-year-old scored 47 goals and 47 assists (94 points) in 78 games and grew into the playoff-chasing Sabres’ first center. Next season, the expectations will be higher for Thompson – but that will hardly put a damper on the tall center from Phoenix.
Elias Pettersson – Vancouver Canucks
Season 2022-23: Matches: 80, Goals: 39, Assists: 63, Points: 102
Elias Pettersson has gone through a couple of tough years with the Canucks, but the Swede is starting to look more and more like a player for the top of the scoring league. Last season he scored 102 points (39+63) and became, together with San Jose Sharks Erik Karlsson, the only Swedes over the 100 mark (for the first time since Daniel Sedin in 2011). Pettersson went from 68 to 102 points, but also took on great responsibility as a leader. Especially after former team captain Bo Horvat was traded to the New York Islanders. There is even more to pick up in Pettersson, who is the Canucks’ most important player.
Video: ANA-VAN: Pettersson scores his 100th point of the season
Mika Zibanejad – New York Rangers
Season 2022-23: Matches: 82, Goals: 39, Assists: 52, Points: 91
Mika Zibanejad is on his way to truly high status in New York Rangers history. The reliable Swedish two-way center has taken on the role of the team’s most important and high-scoring player. Last season he scored 90 points (39+52) and for the second consecutive season over 80 points. Zibanejad could be the next Swede to reach 50 goals in the NHL in one season, something no blue-yellow player has done since Håkan Loob in 1988.
The Swede carries the team’s first chain from his center position, he has a leading role in the team’s power play and off the ice he has taken over the role as the face of Henrik Lundqvist.
Jack Eichel – Vegas Golden Knights
Season 2022-23: Matches: 67, Goals: 27, Assists: 39, Points: 66
After the injury, the dispute over surgery and the move from the Buffalo Sabers to the Vegas Golden Knights, life is playing out for Jack Eichel. Last season was his first full one in Vegas – and he made the most of it. The 2015 No. 2 pick scored 66 points (27+39) in 67 regular season games, but then was a big reason Vegas went all the way to win the Stanley Cup with his 26 points in 22 games. The playoffs were Eichel’s first in his career, but he played like he had never done anything else.
Jack Eichel has found the right hockey-wise and has become one of the league’s most reliable centers.
Video: Jack Eichel’s third career hat trick
Jack Hughes – New Jersey Devils
Season 2022-23: Matches: 78, Goals: 39, Assists: 63, Points: 99
The New Jersey Devils have got their big center star. Because after last season, Jack Hughes must be counted as an absolute top center in the league. The question is whether he can join and challenge for the top of the scoring league already in the fall?
In the 2022-23 season, Hughes scored a total of 99 points (43+56) resulting in the best individual performance by a Devils player ever. And had it not been for an injury that caused him to miss four games during the regular season, he would surely have passed 100 points.
Hughes was drafted No. 1 by the Devils in 2019. Four years later, he has blossomed into his full potential and become a top center in the NHL.
2023-07-10 14:41:37
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