Jacob Billington of The Hockey Writers recently conducted a poll, ranking the best players in the NHL through over 10,000 head-to-head votes, excluding goaltenders. Connor McDavid took the top spot in this list, with Nathan MacKinnon, Nikita Kucherov, and Cale Makar unsurprisingly trailing. The New York Islanders had three players appear on the list: Mathew Barzal (45), Noah Dobson (46), and Bo Horvat (75).
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Notably, Islanders All-Star Brock Nelson was omitted from the list, despite having outscored several players named over the last season and the past three to four years. The players listed include Claude Giroux (100), Evgeni Malkin (97), Alex Tuch (95), Quinton Byfield (92), and Seth Jarvis (90), as well as John Tavares (78), Nikolaj Ehlers (65), Timo Meier (64), Cole Caufield (58), and many others. This is not to say Nelson is a top-50 player in the NHL, and many of the players mentioned are arguably deserving of their rankings, but his absence from the list is concerning.
Nelson is an Elite Sniper
One reason to believe Nelson has flown under the radar is due to how he scores his goals. He is a tall center who skates very well, but he is not flashy. He does not skate like Barzal, speeding and dangling through defenders, despite maintaining somewhat similar speeds according to NHL Edge (Barzal was in the 98th percentile in speed bursts over 20 MPH last season, Nelson in the 86th percentile). Additionally, Barzal ranked higher in top shot speed than Nelson despite having a significantly lower shooting percentage and goal total in recent seasons.
What makes Nelson such a great goal scorer is not his strength or skating, but rather his ability to score from high-danger areas and utilize his quick and lethally accurate shot. According to NHL Edge, the majority of Nelson’s goals and shots come from the slot, and he maximizes his talent and scoring changes.
What makes Nelson’s absence from the list so fascinating is that the 2023-24 season was not even the best of his career yet still better than so many of the players listed. He scored 30+ goals in each of the past three seasons, a single-season career-high of 37 goals (2021-22) and 75 points (2022-23), yet somehow was left off the list for players like Jarvis and Byfield, who have never touched Nelson’s 2023-24 stat line of 69 points (34 goals and 35…
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