Adam Fox may have climbed three spots, but NHL Network still seems to be treating him like a player who’s easy to overlook.
Fox landed at No. 13 on the network’s top 20 defensemen list heading into the 2026-27 season, up from No. 16 a year ago. That’s a modest rise on paper, but it also puts the Rangers blueliner in an interesting spot: respected, productive, and still somehow getting nudged into the background when the conversation turns to the league’s elite defensemen.
Former New Jersey defenseman Ken Daneyko pushed back on that idea during the NHL Network discussion.
“He won the Norris one year, and then we kind of forget about him and say, well, he’s dipped, or he struggled a bit here,” Daneyko said. “But overall he’s been one of the best defensemen in the game the last six, seven years.”
Fox’s placement trails a stacked group that includes Cale Makar, Quinn Hughes, Zach Werenski, Rasmus Dahlin, Miro Heiskanen, Lane Hutson, Matthew Schaefer, Jake Sanderson, Moritz Seider, Evan Bouchard, Charlie McAvoy, and Jaccob Slavin.
Even with 27 games missed in the 2025-26 season because of injury, Fox still put together a strong year. In 55 games, the 28-year-old finished with nine goals, 44 assists, and 53 points, coming close to a point per game despite the lost time.
Thomas Hickey said the emergence of flashy young defensemen has helped push Fox into the shadows a bit.
“We’ve been so blessed to see the young guys in the game come in and be wizards offensively like Lane Hutson, like a Matthew Schaefer, that someone that doesn’t have the flair, maybe the dynamic ability to them, that we sort of forget about them,” Hickey said on NHL Network. “And I think Fox is the forgotten player on this list.”
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