Fan Vote: Nick Suzuki voted 28th best forward in the NHL

Dose
Crédit:

What would be your ranking of the best forwards in the entire National Hockey League?

This is clearly a fun exercise to do, and it’s always interesting to compare different lists to see what different people think.

The exercise becomes even more interesting when a ranking takes into account the opinions of several thousand people.

Well, as it does every year, this is the exercise carried out by the X/Twitter account JFresh, as it takes the time to tally the votes of its subscribers to produce a ranking of the best forwards.

He normally also does this for defenders, goalkeepers and, of course, all players put together.

This generally gives us a pretty good idea of the state of the forces in the NHL, as over 8,300 hockey fans vote and have therefore been able to give their opinion.

So it’s interesting to see how the various NHL fans rate the different forwards, especially those of the Canadiens.

Well, if you look at JFresh’s list, you’ll see that Nick Suzuki is ranked 28th.

It’s a respectable position for the Habs captain, who is coming off his career-best season with 89 points, including 30 goals, in 82 games.

Clearly, I’d have seen Suzuki move up a few spots, ahead of guys like Tim Stützle, Nico Hischier and maybe even Brady Tkachuk, but hey, it’s still a great position for the Habs’ number 14.

As for the Habs’ other forwards, well, in the top-100, there’s only one other, Cole Caufield, whose name appears at number 53, just ahead of a certain Jordan Kyrou (linked to the Habs via several rumors).

53ᵉ may be a bit low for Caufield (who just scored 37 goals and 70 points), when he clearly deserved to be in the top-50, ahead of guys like Andrei Svechnikov, j.T. Miller, Matthew Barzal and Nikolaj Ehlers.

Obviously, this is just my humble opinion, and you’re entitled to think differently than I do.

Now, if we expand the list to see the top 128 NHL forwards according to this fan vote, we can spot another Habs player, Juraj Slafkovsky at 115th.

What’s also interesting about this second table is that it shows the positions of each of his players in the JFresh rankings over the past four seasons.

Suzuki has climbed steadily in recent years, from 70th to 28th since 2022, and up 15 places since last season.

As for Caufield, it has climbed back up after suffering a small drop from 70th to 74th between 2023 and 2024. He has now climbed 21 places since last season.

As for Slafkovsky, he’s gone from 92nd to 115th since the 2023-2024 season.

In short, it’s really interesting to analyze this ranking, and not just for Habs players.

The top-10 is fairly evenly distributed, and the Stanley Cup champions have five forwards in the top-50.

Florida Panthers :

  • Aleksander Barkov – 5th
  • Matthew Tkachuk: 13th
  • Sam Reinhart: 15th
  • Sam Bennett : 43rd
  • Brad Marchand: 45th

Let’s just say they’re not two-time Stanley Cup champions for nothing…

For those interested, here’s a list of the forwards who have risen and fallen the most in this ranking since last year.

Overtime

– Good point.

– I couldn’t agree more.

– Interesting.

– Diogo Jota’s death still seems unreal.

– Up next.