NHL Position Rankings for the 2022-2023 Season: Left Wingers

Even though centers generally get all the glory among the forward group in the NHL, left wing is where it’s at for razzle-dazzle. Snipers, power forwards, acrobatic deke masters and guys who can rip it from just about anywhere on the ice all hang out on the left side.

Behind the net is Wayne Gretzky’s office, and every other center can wheel through the middle, but the left circle is every left wing’s hangout. Whether you’re looking for someone who can tee it up there at will or a guy who can make magical passes into the slot, it’s a vital position for racking up points.

But how do you rank out guys who all have varying talents and abilities? That’s for us to worry about and for you to find out. We could probably rank out 30 of them, but we’re going with 10 because that’s great for stirring up emotions.

Since there is bound to be some argument over positions, we’re using NHL.com's designations, so keep that in mind before “Well, actually”-ing us about it.

Kick back and read on, and make sure to tell us in the comments what you think of our list of the top 10 left wings in the NHL.

Playing in Pittsburgh on Sidney Crosby’s wing comes with a lot of pressure. It takes a particular kind of player to fit in with his creativity and play style, but Crosby found a keeper in Jake Guentzel.

Guentzel arrived on the scene with the Penguins in 2016, and all he’s done is drive the net and bury goals. He’s scored 161 goals with 341 points in 375 games and scored 40 goals in a single campaign twice, including last season. His goal total last season was the best on the team, nine better than second-place Crosby, and he matched Sid with 84 points for the team lead.

Guentzel made his way to Pittsburgh gradually through development, but when he went pro, he moved up fast. He spent three seasons in college with 119 points in 108 games before he signed. He played nearly half a season in the AHL before going to Pittsburgh after he had 48 points (23 goals) in 44 games with Wilkes-Barre/Scranton. Since then, he’s almost exclusively played on a line with Crosby. Not a bad gig if you can get it.

Nashville had never been a place where prolific offense happened much, or at all, but Filip Forsberg helped change that when he arrived full-time at the NHL level in 2014-2015.

Since that season, Forsberg has done nothing but fill the net for the Predators. He’s scored 220 goals in 566 games over eight-plus seasons, best on the team in that time by 92 goals—and better than Viktor Arvidsson’s 127. His 463 points in that time puts him second only to Roman Josi with 468 points. And to think, all it cost to acquire him from the Washington Capitals was Martin Erat. I’m sure that worked out fine both ways.

The Predators haven’t had a scorer like Forsberg since…ever? He’s already the franchise’s all-time leader in goals. He passed David Legwand’s 210 last season. He’s fourth all-time in points behind Legwand, Roman Josi and Erat. He’ll be third soon, as he trails Erat by 12 points.

Forsberg scored a career-high 42 goals last season. His previous season-high of 33 was in 2015-2016, and he had 31 the season after that. His 84 points last season was 20 points better than his previous high of 64, which he accomplished twice.

You can’t expect him to shoot 18.6 percent like he did last season all the time, but his career average was 12.1 before last season. Nashville showed it loved him and wanted more of him when the team signed him to an eight-year, $68 million contract in July.

You don’t need to have played for a long time to crack a top-10 list, you just need to put up the kind of numbers that demand it. Jason Robertson has done just that.

The Dallas Stars’ budding phenom blew up in a big way last season after he showed in his rookie season that he can pile up points.

The 23-year-old from Arcadia, California, scored 17 goals with 45 points in 51 games in 2020-2021 and finished second in voting for the Calder Trophy. Those numbers were both good for second on the team behind Joe Pavelski, and Robertson played five fewer games.

Robertson showed he wasn’t a one-year wonder last season when he scored a team-leading 41 goals with 79 points, just two points shy of Pavelski’s team-best 81. That performance earned him votes for both the Hart Trophy and All-NHL honors.

Robertson’s huge season timed perfectly with the expiration of his entry-level contract, and he remains an unsigned restricted free agent as of writing. It would be silly for Dallas to play hardball with a player who has shown he can pile up points (125 in 128 games), particularly goals (58), at such a young age in so few games played. Robertson’s celebrity is on the rise in the NHL, and the spotlight awaits him.

Being a physical winger is a good way to make sure you get a lot of chances, but being physical and having a knack for scoring goals helps set you apart. This is how Matthew Tkachuk takes care of business, with a side of nasty to go with it.

Since landing in the NHL in 2016, Tkachuk has established himself as one of the edgiest players in the NHL. He will crash the net, he will finish his checks, and he will tussle with the opponent if he needs to.

In six seasons, he has 152 goals, 382 points and 425 penalty minutes in 431 career games. Now at age 24, he’s coming off his best season in which he had 104 points (second only to Johnny Gaudreau) with 42 goals (tied for team-high with Elias Lindholm).

Tkachuk spent those first six seasons being a pain in the butt to everyone in the Western Conference (particularly Drew Doughty), but now he’s in the East with the Florida Panthers and in the same division as his brother, Brady. The Panthers may have lacked some nastiness last season, but they’ll have plenty to go around with Tkachuk on board, and he'll add another element to their potent offensive attack.

The Minnesota Wild waited a while, patiently, for Kirill Kaprizov to come over from Russia, but boy was it worth it.

In two seasons, Kaprizov became an instant highlight-reel producer. His goals and his assists come with all the flash and dash you could ask for from an offensively gifted player. His quick feet and deceptive hands put up 108 points and 47 goals last season after he debuted the previous season with 27 goals and 51 points in 55 games. He electrified a team and a fanbase that hasn’t had that kind of offensively skilled player since Marian Gaborik.

Making the Wild fun to watch on a nightly basis is a crowning accomplishment, and sparking their offense overall is the biggest reason why. Since their inception, the two Wild teams with Kaprizov scored at the best rate (3.72 goals per game in 2021-2022; 3.21 goals per game in 2020-2021, tied with 2016-2017).

The Wild have never been known for filling the net, but the rub-off Kaprizov has had is impressive. Playing on a line with “Kirill the Thrill” led his linemates Ryan Hartman and Mats Zuccarello to have career years.

Hartman scored 34 goals, 15 more than his previous career-high, and 65 points, 34 points better than his former best. Zuccarello’s 24 goals were his most since 2015-2016, and he bested his previous high in points (61) with 79. Kaprizov is like rocket fuel for his teammates, and there’s more fun to come.

When it comes to elusive, shifty goal scorers in the NHL, Kyle Connor ranks among the best. Since he entered the NHL in 2016-2017, only Alex Ovechkin (255) and Brad Marchand (198) have scored more goals than Connor (178) among left wings—his 344 points put him sixth in the position group.

He’s scored 30 or more goals in four of the past five seasons and was well on pace to do the same in the COVID-19-shortened 2020-2021 season when he had 26 goals in 56 games. Patrik Laine may have gotten the attention and headlines while he was with the Jets, but it was Connor who not only filled the net but did it consistently, too.

Connor’s brand of offense is opportunistic. He scores on a high percentage of his shots (15.3 percent for his career), and he does shoot a ton (he’s led Winnipeg in shots in each of the past three seasons), but scoring at that rate with prolific shooting is a rare combination. Being that lucky every year would be like winning the lottery while being struck by lightning at the same time you’re attacked by a shark. Maybe he’s just that good.

Brad Marchand is the guy everyone loves to hate but also hates to hate as well. He has made it a signature of his career to irritate, enrage, and distract opposing players—superstars and average Joes alike. Hockey is a game, but for Marchand, the real game is making someone else lose their cool enough to put themselves in the penalty box trying to enact some revenge.

While being the best on-ice troll in the NHL is a good enough reason to put him on this list, what also deeply offends opposing teams is how good he is at everything else on the ice. Since the 2017-2018 season, he’s first in points and third in goals among left wings behind Alex Ovechkin and Kyle Connor. Calling Marchand a prolific scorer almost feels dirty, but the facts don’t lie.

Marchand doesn’t just get under your skin at 5-on-5, he does it on the power play and the penalty kill as well. Seeing No. 63 score against your team at even strength is one thing, but shorthanded? That’s the best long-distance trolling possible (he has 33 career shorthanded goals).

You may not want to admit it, but Marchand is an elite player and deserving of an elite spot in our ranking—even though he’ll miss the first couple months of this season after offseason hip surgery.

Artemi Panarin is as good as it gets, and he’s shown to be the kind of player who not only likes being on the biggest stage but also thrives in the spotlight.

Since The “Breadman” joined the New York Rangers in 2019-2020 after two seasons in Columbus and two more before that with Chicago, he’s put up 249 points in 186 games with the Blueshirts.

Known not just for scoring goals but timely goals, he’s shown to be the ideal setup man for his linemates with 382 assists in 508 career games, with 112 of those on the power play.

He was able to help establish Ryan Strome with the Rangers by working so well with him. Teaming up with Patrick Kane and Artem Anisimov in Chicago, along with Pierre-Luc Dubois and Cam Atkinson in Columbus, made it easy for those teams to pile up goals as well.

Panarin also won the Calder Trophy in 2016 at 24 years old. That for sure was not controversial in any way, especially with some guy named Connor McDavid, whoever he is, third in the voting. You must be good (or have a few more years) to get one over on him.

Johnny Gaudreau has always been an outstanding scorer, but last season with Calgary, he took things to a new level.

“Johnny Hockey” became a Hart Trophy candidate with his 40-goal, 115-point season with the Flames, helping take them to the top of the standings in the Pacific Division. In his eight full seasons in the NHL, he has scored 30 or more goals three times and has 609 points in 602 games played.

Gaudreau was a star at Boston College, but that was just an appetizer for the kind of player he’s evolved into in the NHL. Gaudreau is a playmaker to the hilt. Yes, he can pile up goals, but, yes, he can also set up his teammates with ease. He’s steadily had 40 or more assists each season (except in the shortened 2020-21 campaign) and broke 60 assists twice before he put up 75 last season.

That kind of variance in how he can create offense is a leading reason why the Columbus Blue Jackets ponied up in a big way (seven years, $68.25 million) to bring him in as a free agent in July.

If the switch from the “C” of Red to the capital of Ohio seems like a big challenge for him, it’s the kind worth taking on for a player coming off a career season. The Jackets finished sixth in the Metropolitan Division and had four players with 50 or more points. Watching Gaudreau attempt to bring the Blue Jackets back to life on the ice and in the standings will at least be fun to watch.

Who else would be here but Alex Ovechkin? Over the past 17 seasons, he’s piled up 780 goals and has a legitimate shot at Wayne Gretzky’s all-time goal record of 894. That he’s 114 behind The Great One is staggering. That he scored 50 goals last season at age 36 makes the possibility realistic.

In Ovechkin’s career, he has scored 50 or more goals in a season nine times, with a career-high of 65 set back in 2007-2008. His dynamic slap shot has earned him countless goals, and, somehow still after all this time, teams find ways to give him room on the power play from the circle so he can one-time pucks past goalies.

He’s a prolific shooter (he’s led the NHL in shots on goal 11 times) and has a career shooting percentage of 12.9. Gretzky shot 17.9 percent for his career, but goaltending, goalie equipment and playing systems weren’t quite as strong in the 1980s as they are now.

Of players all-time who have played 1,000 games or more, 12.9 percent ties him for 100th with three other players (Henrik Sedin, Brendan Shanahan, Rod Gilbert). Those three players combined for 10,084 shots in 3,919 games (2.6 shots per game). Ovechkin has 6,061 and counting through 1,274 (4.8 shots per game).

The Great Eight doesn’t need any further lauding because if you didn’t know he was the premier left wing of all time, where have you been all these years?

Statistics from: Hockey Reference, Natural Stat Trick, NHL.com