Dahlin among the top 10 players in hockey: The Athletic

[dudacek]

Our captain has cracked the top tier in this annual ranking vetted by more than 20 professional executives.

He’s behind only McDavid, Kucherov, McKinnon, Draisaitl, Makar and Quinn Hughes.

This is rarified air among the best of the best in one of the most credible lists of its type.

https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/7555547/2026/09/02/nhl-player-tiers-rankings-2026/

Edited September 2 by dudacek

[dudacek]

Zach Benson also cracks the list in the upper reaches of tier 5, just outside the top 100.

So just a few weeks after their prospect guy ranks him the 124th best U23 player in the world, their senior writers rank him higher on the list of best players overall.

Edited September 2 by dudacek

[dudacek]

Mattias Samuelsson, Josh Doan and Owen Power also in that fifth tier below Benson, meaning they are considered among the top 150 players in hockey.

Byram and Tuch also slotted in that range.

[dudacek]

Finally, Thompson ranks in the middle of Tier 3 (All-star), putting him somewhere in the vicinity of 50th overall.

So overall, six players among the top 150.

[Taro T]

1 minute ago, dudacek said:

Finally, Thompson ranks in the middle of Tier 3 (All-star), putting him somewhere in the vicinity of 50th overall.

So overall, six players among the top 150.

Which is actually a little disappointing because with 32 teams, teams on average will have just under 5 players in the top 150.  Would hope that after all the talent accumulation we've gone through over the past way too long a time frame that they'd be a bit further above average by now.

[dudacek]

9 minutes ago, Taro T said:

Which is actually a little disappointing because with 32 teams, teams on average will have just under 5 players in the top 150.  Would hope that after all the talent accumulation we've gone through over the past way too long a time frame that they'd be a bit further above average by now.

Yep. 

Of course it would have been 8, but they let two guys on the list go without adding any.

Good illustration of why some see this as a disappointing offseason.

Also an illustration of why some want to add a top20 player in Hellebuyck.

[dudacek]

Glad to see Dahlin getting the acclaim he has deserved for a while now.

His write up:

Dahlin has been one of the league’s premier drivers from the back end for a few years, but it’s been hard for some to spot because of how desolate his surroundings were.

One former player put it aptly last year when Dahlin was knocking on the door of Tier 1: “Everything Makar does, this kid does. He just can’t put up 90 points because they f---in’ suck.”

Dahlin still hasn’t hit the 90-point mark, but he came close to the pace last season after returning from a family emergency in mid-November. From that point forward, the Sabres no longer sucked; Dahlin scoring 65 points in 63 games while tilting the ice heavily at five-on-five was a driving force for that. He was Buffalo’s engine.

“What he did in the second half of the season was flat-out elite and he deserves a lot of credit for that,” one coach said.

Buffalo being good is not the reason Dahlin cracked Tier 1 this year. It’s that he proved the level he showed during 2024-25 was no fluke — and then he took it a step further as the season progressed, culminating in a third-place Norris finish. Dahlin is a game-changer, and team success has finally allowed that to shine.

“He’s finally getting the respect he deserves,” an exec said

Edited September 2 by dudacek

[Turbo44]

 It where is UPL compared to Hellebuyk?

[dudacek]

3 minutes ago, Turbo44 said:

 It where is UPL compared to Hellebuyk?

Hellebuyck is among the top-ranked goalies, in the 2nd tier, along with with Shesterkin, Sorokin and Vasilevskiy

Seven other goalies cracked five-tier list of 150, UPL was not one of them.

Edited September 2 by dudacek

[Taro T]

17 minutes ago, dudacek said:

Hellebuyck is among the top-ranked goalies, in the 2nd tier, along with with Shesterkin, Sorokin and Vasilevskiy

Seven other goalies cracked five-tier list of 150, UPL was not one of them.

Imagine how bad the Rags or Aisles would be without their star goalies giving them a chance to compete night in.  Imagine how good the Sabres could be with one of those 4 covering up the occassional Thompson (and more often Quinn) random spin around inside the blue line and lose the puck straight out brain fart.

[Xzy89c]

3 hours ago, Taro T said:

Which is actually a little disappointing because with 32 teams, teams on average will have just under 5 players in the top 150.  Would hope that after all the talent accumulation we've gone through over the past way too long a time frame that they'd be a bit further above average by now.

we have many young guys on upswing that you cannot rank high yet. hopefully a couple make it next year.

[PASabreFan]

I assume this correlates with winning.

[Archie Lee]

41 minutes ago, PASabreFan said:

I assume this correlates with winning.

Sort of.

The East has 87 players on the list. The West 63.

The Atlantic has 48 players, the Metro 39.

Of the Eastern teams, the Sabres are tied with Ottawa with the 6th most in the conference and 5th most in the Atlantic. 

[Turbo44]

5 hours ago, dudacek said:

Hellebuyck is among the top-ranked goalies, in the 2nd tier, along with with Shesterkin, Sorokin and Vasilevskiy

Seven other goalies cracked five-tier list of 150, UPL was not one of them.

Yep Hellebuyck is the 28th ranked player, by 20 Of the most Knowledgeable people in hockey. My opinion, but not doing as much as we can to get him is stupid. Down year last year - last what a knee injury can do. Bad playoff track record - that’s what playing 65-70 regular season games can do. Play him 50-55 regular season games and let’s see how he plays in the playoffs