The NHL’s top 100 players: Where do McDavid, Matthews, Pastrnak, Hellebuyck land?

Hockey is the ultimate team sport, and just because a team has the greatest player in the world doesn’t guarantee it will win a championship. Of course, if a team has two of the top players in the world, it can come awfully close, as the Edmonton Oilers showed last season in getting to one win short of a Stanley Cup.Spoiler alert: Connor McDavid topped our ranking of the top 100 NHL players for 2024-25, just as he did for 2023-24 and 2022-22 and 2021-22 and … you get it. But where does Leon Draisaitl rank? And what about Aleksander Barkov and Matthew Tkachuk from the Florida Panthers squad that beat the Oilers in the Cup Final?We asked a panel of more than 50 ESPN broadcasters, analysts, reporters and editors to rate players based on how good they will be in the 2024-25 season compared with their peers. Emphasis was placed on their value for this coming season, which explains why players who are currently out injured (but are expected to return) might be lower than if they were…