On Wednesday, we released our NHL Rank for the 2020-21 season -- a predictive list of the top 100 players for this coming season. A panel of 11 ESPN NHL experts (it wasn't just the two of us!) graded players based on how good they will be in comparison to their peers this season. Emphasis was entirely on predicting potential greatness for 2020-21, rather than past performance. And from those ratings, we ranked the best of the best and compiled a list of the top 100 players.
But that doesn't mean we got everyone correct, at least in the eyes of some of our readers. Who was snubbed from the top 100? Who was ranked way too high? Who wasn't ranked high enough? We asked for your gripes, and now we're here to offer our side. We determine the veracity of those protests, while naming a few snubs of our own in a roundtable rebuttal. First, here are our own issues with the ranking.
See more:
Our top-100 list
Spinning the list five years forward
Emily and Greg's snub picks and ranking complaints
Emily Kaplan, national NHL reporter: There are a few players who fell out of the top 100 that I felt deserved inclusion: Teuvo Teravainen, Duncan Keith, Adam Fox, Jonathan Marchessault, Dylan Larkin, Jared Spurgeon, Travis Konecny and Jake Muzzin. I could even be convinced that Ottawa forward Brady Tkachuk deserved to make the cut. But the one I took greatest offense to was St. Louis Blues defenseman Colton Parayko.
While I love Torey Krug as a player, all Blues fans know that it's Parayko who is going to absorb the role of No. 1 defenseman now that Alex Pietrangelo is off to Vegas, not Krug -- who made the list at No. 63 overall. Krug is a terrific player who gets underrated defensively because he puts up such good offensive numbers. But Parayko has been a growing beast for this team, especially as he has played in more situations and gained more confidence after the 2019 Stanley Cup run.