For the third straight year, Nick Suzuki has landed on NHL Network’s list of the league’s top 20 centers, and the Canadiens captain keeps climbing. He was 16th in 2024, jumped to 10th last year, and this time checked in at ninth. That’s a nice rise, but it still feels a little low given how much weight these rankings seem to place on recent performance.
The names ahead of Suzuki are Connor McDavid, Nathan MacKinnon, Macklin Celebrini, Leon Draisaitl, Aleksander Barkov, Jack Eichel, Sidney Crosby, and Auston Matthews. The top four are tough to challenge. McDavid, MacKinnon, Celebrini, and Draisaitl sit in a different offensive tier.
Barkov is a different kind of case. He didn’t play last season, so his fifth-place spot is really built on everything he had already done before the knee injury that ended his year.
He isn’t just a points player either. Barkov has three Frank J.
Selke trophies - in 2021, 2024, and 2025 - and his defensive game makes him a miserable matchup. Add in the fact that he captained the Florida Panthers to two Stanley Cups, and there’s plenty there for voters to lean on.
Suzuki, though, has his own trophy case argument. He won the Frank J.
Selke Trophy as the league’s top defensive forward, so he beat that whole group on the defensive side of the puck. The one area where he came up short against some of those centers was at the faceoff circle.
Suzuki finished at 50.5%, behind Crosby at 55.2% and Matthews at 59.7%, but ahead of Eichel at 47.7%.
Crosby still brings the pedigree, even at 39, and while he’s slowed down naturally, his leadership remains a factor. That part of the debate probably gives him the edge over Suzuki.
But the comparison gets much tougher with Eichel and Matthews. The Maple Leafs have won two playoff series since Matthews went first overall in the 2016 draft, while Suzuki has already led Montreal to two playoff series wins this season alone and three more in 2021, including one against Matthews and Toronto.
You can also fold in the 2020 qualification round, which the Canadiens won against Crosby and the Pittsburgh Penguins.
The bigger picture for Montreal is hard to miss. Suzuki being on this list matters, even if the exact slot is just a talking point. At 27, he still looks like a player who has more room to grow, and next year’s ranking could easily be even higher.
And Suzuki isn’t the only Canadien showing up on these NHL Network lists. Jakub Dobes was ranked the 10th-best goaltender, Lane Hutson came in as the sixth-best defenseman, and Cole Caufield was named the 9th-best winger. For a team that hasn’t always had this kind of representation across the board, it’s a clear sign of how far Montreal has come.
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