Ranking the 10 Best American Players in the NHL Today

It's Hockey Day in America, and with the NHL in its full glory this weekend, we're getting in on the action the best way we know how. We're getting everyone all kinds of worked up by ranking the top 10 American players in the league right now.

American hockey has, arguably, the most talent it has ever had in the history of the sport. No offense to all of the past greats and teams that shined on the brightest of stages, but have you looked around the league right now? It's incredible!

Seeing how many outstanding Americans are lighting it up around the league makes it even more exciting that we'll see the Four Nations Faceoff and NHL players back in the Olympics in 2026. It's been so long since we've seen all of the best players together in a tournament that we're starved for it again.

But which guys are the 10 best in the league right now? We've put together our list, and we're sure you've got different ideas of who belongs instead. Let's get at it.

You know there are a lot of great players when the countdown from 10 starts with the Dallas Stars' big-time scorer.

Jason Robertson has been torching goalies around the league for the past few seasons, and after being somewhat under the radar in previous years, he's a well-known superstar for opposing teams to focus their game plans around.

Since the 2021-2022 season, Robertson has the third-most goals scored and the fourth-most points scored among American skaters. At 24 years old, the Arcadia, California, native has helped make the Stars into a force in the league and a Stanley Cup contender.

Seeing how Robertson has evolved the past few seasons and taken over as one of Dallas' elite talents up front has been exciting to watch. After all, he was a second-round pick in 2017, so he didn't exactly have the kind of hype associated with first-rounders, but seeing him put up back-to-back 40-plus goal seasons has been awesome.

With his ability to fill the net and to set up his teammates, he's been invaluable to the Stars' success.

You knew there'd be at least one Hughes brother in the top 10 of this ranking, and the chances are pretty good you'll see another one soon enough, but what Jack's done with the New Jersey Devils has helped get them back into playoff and Stanley Cup talk like it was the 1990s.

Hughes' offensive ability is among the best in the entire league. In 41 games, he's put up 51 points this season. For his career, he's scored nearly a point per game with 258 points in 285 games. Last season he had a career-high in goals with 43 on his way to a career-high 99-point season.

Hughes' ability to see the ice and make the right play is out of control good. What's wild is that at just 22 years old, he's already made enough of an impression on the league to be billed as one of the biggest stars around. Although the Devils are in a fight and a half to get back to the playoffs this year, Hughes is doing everything he can to carry them offensively.

To be one of the standout defensemen in the NHL these days means being able to pile up points like it's no one's business while defensive efforts can be somewhat fungible. For Adam Fox, he can score and produce offense, but he can also handle his defensive assignments with aplomb.

Fox, who won the Norris Trophy in 2021, has been the New York Rangers' stalwart along the blue line. His ability to move the puck through all zones to help make those zone exits and entries shine gives the Rangers an elite weapon to lead their attack from the back. His performance as an elite quarterback on the power play also helps give the Blueshirts a leg up on opposing penalty killers.

What also makes Fox so valuable is he's good under duress. Any defenseman in the NHL plays with a ton of pressure on them to begin with whether it's from dealing with the top scorers from each team every shift to being the literal last line of defense before the goalie. Doing it in New York City helps add another level of stress to the job, but Fox handles all of that as cool as can be and is great on the regular and one of the best Americans at that.

If there's one position the United States will never have to sweat during major international competitions for the foreseeable future, it's goaltender. Vancouver's Thatcher Demko has reminded us all of just how good he is this season.

To be fair to Demko, however, he's been outstanding since he returned form injury last season. That may have also coincided with Rick Tocchet taking over the Canucks and the team riding a rocket into the stratosphere from there, but Demko is making all of it stand up.

For his career, Demko has a .912 save percentage, and this season he's returned to his more normal level of play with a .917 mark. When he returned from injury last February, after having an absolutely miserable first half of the year, from that point on until the end of the season he had a .918 mark.

Demko's been a steadily very good goalie for most of his career, but he's playing at an elite level now. He's on pace to have a career-best season this year and among American goalies he's been one of the best to do it and have the track record of excellent play to go with it.

It might've been easy to let Jack Eichel slip from your mind with how other American players are performing this season. Although Eichel's been out of action since he sustained an injury January 11 against Boston, he's proved through his career that he is an elite talent.

Eichel helped lead Vegas to the Stanley Cup last season and proved to be the missing piece they needed in their forward group to finally take it over the top. Being a No. 1 center helps make that possible, of course, but he had 66 points in 67 games last season, and this year he's got 44 points in 42 games and is due back to the Golden Knights lineup soon.

Although his time in Buffalo didn't yield any time in the postseason, his playoffs debut last season with Vegas showed he was built for it, as he was the top scorer in the playoffs with 26 points including a playoff-best 20 assists.

Eichel's a dynamic player with the speed, strength and shot that can make opposing defenses look minor league when they try to get a handle on him. When he's not out there for Vegas, it's clear they miss having him, but when he's leading their attack, they're among the most dangerous teams in the league because of him.

It's kind of wild to think that the J.T. Miller was this close to being a Pittsburgh Penguin just a year ago at the trade deadline, but watching his game take off in Vancouver the past few seasons has been remarkable.

He was a good player when he came up with the New York Rangers, and he became a better player with the Tampa Bay Lightning. With the Canucks, though, he's taken his two-way game and evolved into more of a take-charge offensive threat on arguably the most explosive team in the NHL.

In 343 games with Vancouver, Miller has 378 points and he's scored 32 goals in each of the previous two seasons and he's up to 29 so far this year. He's also the leading point scorer among American players this season (although he's played four more games than Auston Matthews who's two points behind him).

That Miller has become such a dynamite offensive threat is something that a lot of us didn't really expect to see happen, but now that we're seeing it in motion, it's making him look like a vital member of the American squad for the Four Nations Faceoff and the Olympics as well.

We rave a lot about Matthew Tkachuk here, and it's for good reason.

He's a tenacious and irritating player for opponents to deal with but also makes him the most valuable player to his own teammates. Being the classic "guy you hate to play against but love to have on your team" has it's advantages, especially when it's coming from a player who's put up 100-plus points in each of the past two seasons.

Tkachuk is a bull around the net who uses his strength to clear a path for himself or to make space for his linemates. He's also a lightning rod for opponents looking to spark things up and he's just as willing to play the role as well.

Tkachuk's ability to score goals in bunches (40 and 42 goals in the past two seasons) and deal out punishment (123 PIMs last season) gives him a throwback style of play and makes him different than just about everyone else in our Top-10. About the only other American that plays like him is his younger brother Brady in Ottawa.

That Tkachuk does all this and is able to lead his teams into the playoffs where his talents take on a entirely new level makes him all the more dangerous.

When you think of puck-moving defensemen who can generate offense at any moment they're on the ice, Quinn Hughes has easily become one of the first names that comes to mind.

Hughes' ability to use his speed and hockey acumen to generate goals and assists in Vancouver has helped make the Canucks one of the toughest teams to deal with this season, but Hughes has been doing this ever since he entered the NHL.

Even though Hughes is well on his way to a career-year this season, he's put up 311 points in 343 career games with Vancouver and averaged 24:05 of ice time per game that whole time. It's truly remarkable to see him do it and seeing him among the NHL leaders in points overall (he's in the top-20) is staggering.

Defensemen just don't normally wind up in the top of the points scorer race and seeing Hughes there now shows how ascendant he's been in taking his game to another level. With other American defensemen also being top tier (Adam Fox, Charlie McAvoy), Hughes has taken his game where few others in American hockey history have gone.

We mentioned that goaltending is the biggest strength in American hockey and the player that best exemplifies that now is Connor Hellebuyck.

Since Hellebuyck came out of UMass Lowell and established himself in the NHL, he's proven to be among the very best goalies in the NHL, period. He won the Vezina in 2020 with Winnipeg and over the past couple of seasons he's again been among the best, and arguably the best, goalies in the league.

With a .917 career save percentage and carrying a .925 save percentage this year, Hellebuyck is showing how dominant he can be as he's helped lead the Jets into the fray with Colorado and Dallas atop the Central Division this year and carried the Jets on his back a year ago to return to the playoffs.

Hellebuyck is a workhorse (four times he's led the league in games played by a goalie) and for he's often seen the most shots in a season (four straight seasons from 2018 to 2022). He's tested often and proven repeatedly he's incredibly difficult to face and sent many scorers away shaking their heads about how he stopped them.

Even with all the competition among American goalies (Thatcher Demko, Jake Oettinger, Jeremy Swayman), Hellebuyck stands tallest among them all.

We've known for years now how dynamic of a goal scorer Auston Matthews is but we're seeing him take things to an entirely new level this season.

Six times in eight seasons Matthews has scored 40 or more goals. In 2021-2022 he had a career-high 60 goals, but this year he's up to 52 goals in 55 games and has as good a shot as anyone's had in years to scoring 70 goals.

Matthews is proving to be an almost unstoppable scorer and on top of that he's also a capable two-way player and also stays out of the penalty box. He's only taken two minor penalties this season for crying out loud. He's tough to get off his game and he's not going to put his team in a bad place with his positioning or his decisions.

Matthews being one of the most dynamic offensive threats in the NHL along with Connor McDavid, David Pastrnak and Nikita Kucherov is thrilling and even though it might drive some fans nuts that he's doing it in Toronto, don't let that distract you from just how good he's been and how good he'll continue to be for years.