The Hockey News has started unveiling its top 80 NHL players for the beginning of the 2026-27 regular season, and the first names in the top 50 are Brayden Point, Charlie McAvoy and Clayton Keller. The rankings are being released in groups of 10, moving backward from 80th place toward No. 1, with the rollout already covering players 80 through 51 before the latest step into the top half of the list.
The timing matters because the publication is marking its 80th year and using that milestone to take stock of where the league stands before the new season begins. For readers searching duck hockey now, this is the kind of list that invites argument as much as it rewards it: it signals which players are being treated as elite entering the year, and it does so while the debate is still fresh, not after the standings have settled.
Point sets the tone for the top 50. He is 30, a two-time Stanley Cup champion and a winner with Team Canada at the 4 Nations Face-Off, a résumé that matches the way he is described as virtually a point-per-game player in both the regular season and the playoffs. His career arc reaches back to 2017-18, when he had 32 goals and 66 points in his sophomore season, and he has crossed the 90-point plateau three times since then.
McAvoy follows as one of the top blueliners in the game today, even though his latest season did not produce the kind of headline scoring line that usually carries a defender into these rankings. He posted a career-best 61 points in 69 games last season and was part of Team USA's gold medal roster at the 2026 Olympics. That mix of production and reputation is enough to keep him high, even when the scoring totals do not read like those of the very top point-getters.
Keller is the cleaner example of why these rankings can be hard to untangle. He was picked seventh overall in 2016 and has been a fixture with the Arizona Coyotes and now the Utah Mammoth, putting together at least 30 goals and 80 points in three of the last four seasons. He also turned in four assists and five points in six post-season games last spring, a short run that still left a mark in a list that values both ceiling and consistency.
The rest of the names in this part of the ranking underline the same point. Adam Fox is included despite posting only 52 points in 2025-26, his lowest total since 2020-21, after three straight years from 2021 to 2024 with at least 56 assists and 72 points. Sam Reinhart, who burst on the NHL scene in 2015-16 and helped lead the Panthers to back-to-back championships, brings a profile built on long-term output, with at least 22 goals in 10 of 11 seasons and at least 50 points in eight of 11. Jake Guentzel rounds out the group with Cup pedigree of his own, a 2017 title with the Pittsburgh Penguins and 659 points in 681 career regular-season games coming into this season, plus a combined 79 goals and 168 points over the past two seasons with the Lightning.
What The Hockey News has not spelled out is the exact formula behind the order, and that is the part that keeps the ranking alive after the reveal. The list is moving in reverse order through the top 80, so the next answers will come in the same tight batches of 10 until the final player is named.
