Every NHL Team's Best Homegrown Player on the Roster Today

Having a homegrown core of talent is a significant part of building a contending team in the NHL, especially in the salary-cap era.

You typically need at least one impact player and star-level performer to win, and the best way to get them is through the draft. Those players rarely hit the free-agent market, and when they do, they are usually well past their prime and have likely already played their best hockey for somebody else.

They tend to hit the trade market in extreme circumstances where they either force their way out or the team in question is so bad that it needs to start a massive rebuild.

Almost every team that reaches a Stanley Cup Final has a couple of these homegrown players making major contributions.

So, let's take a quick look around the NHL at each team's best current homegrown player.

To be considered "homegrown," they have to be a player drafted or signed as an undrafted free agent by the team.

We are also not taking in terms of overall career here. We're looking for the player who is the best right now going into the 2024-25 season. It is not necessarily a career-achievement honor.

It's only a matter of time until somebody like Mason McTavish, Leo Carlsson or one of their talented young defensemen gets the title of best current homegrown Anaheim Ducks player, but as of now, Terry is a worthy choice.

The 26-year-old was a fifth-round pick in the 2015 NHL draft and eventually worked his way up from afterthought late-round pick to early-career role player to current top-line scorer.

It's been a rapid climb over the past three years, and his 37-goal breakout season in 2021-22 was one of the biggest surprises in the league that year.

Terry has not matched that goal total in the two years since, scoring 23 and 20 respectively, but he remains a solid player and big-time success story for the Ducks' farm system and their rebuild.

Dahlin arrived in Buffalo with massive expectations as the No. 1 overall pick in the 2018 draft, but the early part of his career was filled with some inconsistency and struggles.

It was a brutal combination of a revolving door of head coaches, different roles with each coach, and the normal growing pains that come for a young defender in the NHL.

Over the past three years, though, Dahlin has arrived as an impact, star-level player and has been one of the most productive defensemen in the NHL.

The Swede finished in the top 10 in Norris Trophy voting during the 2022-23 season and has scored at least 13 goals and 50 points in each of the past three seasons.

With Dahlin, Owen Power, Bowen Byram and Mattias Samuelsson, the Sabres have one of the most promising young defense corps in the NHL to build around.

If we are talking overall career impact, Brad Marchand is probably the answer here.

But again, we are not talking overall career at this point. We are talking best player right now. And it's really hard to go against Pastrnak with that criteria.

The Bruins selected the Czech with the No. 25 overall pick in the 2014 draft, and he has blossomed into an elite offensive force who can take over a game at any moment.

It's rare to find a player this good so late in the first round, but the Bruins hit a home run here and found one of the NHL's best players.

The 28-year-old has scored at a 40-goal pace per 82 games over the past six years and reached a career-high 61 goals during the 2022-23 season, making him just one of five players to top the 60-goal mark over the past 25 years.

Pastrnak has also topped the 110-point mark two years in a row.

A truly special player.

The departures of Johnny Gaudreau and Matthew Tkachuk in recent years have put a dent in the Flames' homegrown talent.

However, Backlund is a worthy choice for the way he has been an underrated and valuable player for more than a decade in Calgary.

The 35-year-old's offensive numbers don't jump off the page, but he has been an outstanding defensive forward with enough offense to make him an extremely valuable player. He has also climbed to the role of captain.

Backlund was the No. 24 overall pick in 2007, is 10 games away from 1,000 for his career, has 200 career goals and has been a contender for the Selke Trophy as the league's top defensive forward in recent seasons. He's an excellent player.

Aho is not a superstar in the sense that he is going to lead the league in scoring or put up video game-type numbers, but he is one of the better all-around players in the NHL with few weaknesses to his game.

The 26-year-old is a near-lock for at least 30 goals and 60 points every season, drives possession at an elite level and has received serious Selke Trophy consideration and votes throughout his career. He embodies everything about the way the Hurricanes play.

Flashy? Not really. Extremely productive and successful? You bet.

The Hurricanes drafted him in the second round (No. 35 overall) in 2015.

He may only have one year under his belt in the NHL, but Bedard is the answer here.

The easy answer.

The Blackhawks started their rebuild during the 2022-23 season by gutting their roster, giving fans something to hope for with the anticipation of winning the draft lottery and landing the 18-year-old.

They did not finish with the worst record that season, but the lottery balls went their way and allowed them to select Bedard No. 1 overall.

He did not disappoint in his rookie season, scoring 22 goals with 39 assists and 61 total points in only 68 games.

You can tell right away with the great ones when they have the magic to them. Bedard has it.

This was a coin-flip between MacKinnon and defenseman Cale Makar, and you could not go wrong with either choice.

Both are among the top 10 (possibly top five) players in the NHL right now, and both are major cornerstone pieces to the Avalanche organization.

MacKinnon gets the slight edge at this point because his 2023-24 season was such a monster offensively that it's hard to overlook it.

The 28-year-old reached the 140-point mark this season (his second year in a row over 110 points) and became just the fifth player since 1990 (joining Mario Lemieux, Jaromir Jagr, Pat Lafontaine and Connor McDavid) as the only players to top at least 50 goals and 140 points in the same season.

MacKinnon was the No. 1 overall pick in 2013.

There is going to come a point in the not-too-distant future when Adam Fantilli is probably going to take over this title in Columbus, but the answer is Werenski for now.

His contract is substantial ($9.5 million salary-cap hit for four more seasons with a no-movement clause), but he is an excellent, offensive defenseman when healthy and arguably the Blue Jackets' best player.

The 26-year-old finished the 2023-24 season with a career-high 57 points in only 70 games and was one of the top-scoring defenders in the NHL on a per-game basis.

Werenski is expensive, but he is good.

The Dallas Stars' 2017 draft performance is one of the best by any team over the past decade (and beyond), landing three franchise players with their top three picks: defenseman Miro Heiskanen, Robertson and goalie Jake Oettinger.

Robertson was the middle of those three picks (No. 39 overall) and gets the edge in this discussion.

The 24-year-old is not only one of the most exciting players to watch in the NHL on a nightly basis, but he has also been one of the league's most productive players since entering it.

Robertson is 15th in the NHL in total points over the past three years and had a top-five finish in MVP voting just one year ago.

The word "underrated" gets thrown around so much that it has almost lost its meaning. It's usually reserved for "good player on a team I don't usually watch."

However, Larkin might be one of the players where the label actually fits. He might truly be underrated around the NHL.

His game has taken a big step over the past few years to a point where he has turned into a bona fide top-line scorer for the Red Wings and taken over as the face of the franchise. He is a 30-goal, 70-point scorer and a strong two-way player who also posts consistently strong underlying numbers.

He has been a fantastic player for the Red Wings.

Now the pressure is on Detroit general manager Steve Yzerman to keep building a team around the 27-year-old that can finally get him back to the playoffs for the first time since his rookie season.

The Red Wings selected him with the No. 15 overall pick in 2015.

Another pick that is just laughably easy.

Forget being the best homegrown player on the Oilers, McDavid is the best player in hockey right now and on track to be one of the best to ever play in the NHL.

The numbers are absurd.

The 27-year-old has already won five scoring titles and two MVP awards, and he is the single biggest reason this alarmingly flawed Oilers team is playing in the Stanley Cup Final.

He has already broken Wayne Gretzky's record for most assists in a single playoff run and is the type of player who can get an entire arena out of its seats the moment the puck touches his stick.

McDavid is one of the greats.

The Oilers picked him No. 1 overall in 2015, continuing their hilarious run of draft lottery wins.

The Panthers are something of an outlier in the way they have been built when compared to most Stanley Cup Final teams. They are built almost primarily through free agency and trades, with only three homegrown players on this year's team.

The best of those players—and most important to their success—is Barkov.

The Panthers picked him No. 2 overall in the 2013 draft and he has become one of the league's best all-around players, blending top-line offense and elite, shutdown defense.

The 28-year-old not only scores between 80-90 points every year, but he is also a Selke Trophy-caliber defensive forward who makes a habit of shutting down other team's top forwards.

The Panthers may not have built much of their team through the draft, but getting a player like Barkov is essential to their success in becoming one of the league's top teams over the past three seasons.

Kopitar might be turning 37 in August, but he has shown little sign of slowing down.

Sure, he might not be as good as he was at his peak when he was leading the Kings to Stanley Cups in 2012 and 2014, but he is still an outstanding two-way center who can play at a high level.

The Slovenian is also still the Kings' best player.

He still tops the 70-point mark deep into his 30s and has finished in the top 10 of the Selke Trophy voting in four of the past six seasons.

Kopitar is an all-time great King who helped bring the Stanley Cup to Los Angeles, stayed through a rebuild and helped the next wave of players become a playoff team again.

The Kings picked him with the No. 11 overall pick in 2005.

When Kaprizov finally made his NHL debut in the 2020-21 season, it came with much hype and fanfare along with the hope he could help transform the Wild on the ice.

The Russian did exactly what, and from the moment he arrived, he changed the entire vibe around the team. They went from being a dull team to something exciting almost overnight.

Minnesota took a big step backward this season as it continued to deal with the salary-cap crunch from the Zach Parise and Ryan Suter buyouts, but Kaprizov again performed like a superstar and topped the 40-goal mark for the third year in a row.

The Wild picked him in the fifth round (No. 135 overall) in 2015. They had to wait a few years for him to come to North America, but he was well worth that wait.

Kaprizov is one of the best draft success stories in the history of the Wild franchise.

The Canadiens are still trying to find their way through their ongoing rebuild, but they do have some strong building blocks to give them hope for the future.

That includes recent No. 1 overall pick Juraj Slafkovsky and Caufield, the No. 15 overall pick from the 2019 draft.

Given the way Slafkovsky took a huge step forward in 2023-24, it's not a stretch to imagine he will soon become their top player, but until that happens, Caufield still gets an edge here due to his goal-scoring ability and finishing touch.

The 23-year-old is coming off a 28-goal season in 2023-24 despite shooting at a career-low rate of just 8.9 percent, a significant drop from his career numbers prior to this season.

Given Caufield's improved shot rate (3.83 per game), a bump in his shooting percentage next season back closer to career levels could make him a legitimate threat to hit 35 or 40 goals.

Josi is one of the all-time great Predators, and even as he prepares to enter his age-34 season, he is one of the best defensemen in the NHL.

The Swiss star has a Norris Trophy on his resume, was a runner-up another time and is somehow getting even more productive as he gets older. He has topped the 85-point mark in two of the past three seasons, including a monster 96-point campaign during the 2021-22 season.

Josi is signed for four more years and should still have some big years left in Nashville.

The Predators got him as a steal with a second-round pick in 2008.

Hughes is one of the most exciting players in the NHL, and he is also one of its best when healthy.

That latter point might be the only flaw he has at this point, as injuries have had a tendency to derail some seasons early in his career.

The 23-year-old has averaged a 100-point per 82 games over the past three seasons, and the only thing that has kept him from consistently eclipsing the century mark is that pesky injury issue that keeps creeping up for him.

Hughes is New Jersey's franchise player and starting to enter the prime years of his career. He's a bona fide star and is not only his team's current best homegrown player but also on course to be one of the best Devils ever.

The Islanders have a few good candidates here, but Sorokin has to be the choice.

Not only because he is one of the best goalies in hockey but also because he is unquestionably their most valuable and important player.

His 2023-24 season was a bit of a disappointment, at least based on the bar he has set for himself in his career. But when he's on top of his game and playing at his best, he is the type of goalie who can put a team on his back and carry it further than it has any business going.

The 28-year-old was runner-up for the Vezina Trophy a year ago and probably deserved more Hart Trophy consideration than he received.

The Islanders picked Sorokin in the third round of the 2014 draft but had to wait a few years for him to arrive. He was well worth it.

If there's one thing the Rangers do well, it's draft and develop franchise goalies who mask a mountain of flaws and then get let down by the team around them in the biggest moments.

Shesterkin looks set to follow in the footsteps of Henrik Lundqvist in that regard, and based on the early returns of his career, he could be on a path to even surpass the Swede on the Rangers' all-time goalie list.

He is that good and impactful.

Shesterkin, 28, is on the very short list of best goalies in the NHL, and he is probably no worse than second in the NHL at any given time.

He has won the Vezina Trophy already as the NHL's best goalie and has a .921 save percentage over his first five full years in the league, while also owning an even more impressive .928 mark in his playoff career.

The Russian has taken the Rangers to two Eastern Conference Finals and is one of the biggest game-stealers and game-changers in the league.

The Rangers picked Shesterkin in the fourth round of the 2014 draft.

You could make a pretty strong argument for Tim Stutzle as Ottawa's best homegrown talent, but Tkachuk is going to get the nod here for his all-around game and ability to rattle the cages of opposing players.

The 24-year-old is simply the total package as a player.

He scores at a top-line rate, he drives possession, he plays physical hockey, and every underlying number he posts indicates there still might be another level to his production.

Tkachuk is already well-established as a 35-goal scorer despite not really ever having an overly high shooting percentage. He consistently shoots around 10 percent, and given his shot volume, he is one small shooting percentage bump away from potential becoming a 45-or 50-goal scorer at some point in his career.

The Senators picked him No. 4 overall in 2018.

The big question with Konecny at this point is how much longer he will still be on the Flyers.

The Canadian is entering the final year of his contract and has been the subject of trade rumors over the past couple of years as the Flyers try to rebuild their organization.

But given the step forward they took this season, as well as the fact that Konency is still only 27 years old and really productive, there should be some incentive to keep him.

He has scored at a 30-goal, 60-point level the past two seasons and is the best offensive player on a team that desperately needs people who can score goals and create offense.

Konecny is not a star by any means, but he is the type of rock-solid first-line player that every good team needs.

It's an indictment of how poor a job the Penguins front office has done the past two seasons that it has not been able to take advantage of Crosby's continued greatness and dominance.

Not only is he still an elite offensive player and point producer, but he has also been completely healthy the past two seasons and not missed a single game, still maintaining a better than point-per-game scoring rate.

Crosby scored 42 goals with 94 total points during the 2023-24 season as a 36-year-old and has shown no signs of slowing down.

He is entering the final year of his current contract, but it would be a massive shock if the Penguins and Crosby do not have a new long-term contract in place as soon as they are eligible to do so.

The Penguins won the 2005 draft lottery and the right to pick Crosby No. 1 overall. It turned out to be a franchise-changing moment as he has led the team to five conference final appearances, four Stanley Cup Finals and three Cup wins.

Even though he played in just six games during the 2023-24 season, Couture has to get the spot here almost by default.

The Sharks are in the middle of a full-scale rebuild that has seen them rip apart their roster in recent years.

Young players such as Will Smith and William Eklund are promising, but there is still a ways to go with them.

Marc-Edouard Vlasic was an outstanding player in San Jose for a long time, but his career is a shell of what it once was.

Couture, 35, can at least still be a top-line scorer when healthy, and assuming he is not traded this offseason as part of the rebuild the Sharks should be hoping to get that level of production out of him this season.

He was the No. 9 overall pick in 2007 and is closing in on 1,000 games with the team and has scored 323 goals with 701 total points in his career with San Jose.

The Kraken are only three years old as a franchise and do not have many options for this spot, but Beniers is a pretty easy pick even if his 2023-24 season was a significant step back from his Calder Trophy rookie year in 2022-23.

It is important to keep in mind that he is still only 21, and not all top prospects or top picks develop at the same pace and become immediate superstars. Sometimes there are some early struggles, inconsistencies and growing pains that need to be worked through.

Players like Nathan MacKinnon and Jack Hughes were top picks who took a few years before they started to produce like All-Stars.

Beniers has the talent to get there. He just needs some time.

He was the first pick in Kraken history, going No. 2 overall in 2021.

The Blues have missed the playoffs two years in a row, but it is hard to find fault in Thomas' play for that lack of success.

The 24-year-old is one of the best playmakers and passers in the NHL and set a career high with 60 assists during the 2023-24 season.

The Blues picked him No. 20 overall in 2017, and he has gradually worked his way up into a top-line player. He is also signed long-term at $8.125 million per season against the salary cap.

Thomas isn't a top-tier goal-scorer, but he is going to make a lot of players around him more productive with his passing and playmaking skills.

Steven Stamkos is arguably the greatest Lightning player of all time, but for as good as he still is on the power play, his 5-on-5 play has dropped a little and there is a chance he is not even on the Lightning this season as he prepares to enter the free-agent market and the team deals with an intense salary-cap crunch.

Those factors, combined with the continued greatness of Kucherov, make him the answer at this point.

And there shouldn't be much debate over it.

Kucherov is coming off an incredible season that saw him win his second scoring title, this time doing so with 144 points. That included 100 assists and 44 goals. All of those numbers are wild.

The Lightning picked him in the second round of the 2011 draft, and he has been a superstar ever since he arrived in the NHL.

The Maple Leafs might need to make some changes to their core after yet another first-round playoff exit, but those changes are not going to involve Matthews. He is too good, and he isn't really part of the problem.

The 26-year-old is the best goal-scorer on the planet right now and has topped the 60-goal mark in two of the past three seasons, including a whopping 69 during the 2023-24 season.

He should top the 400-goal mark at some point next season and is going to be one of the all-time great Maple Leafs. He would become a legend if he could help bring a Stanley Cup back to the city.

The Maple Leafs picked him No. 1 overall in 2016 to make him the centerpiece of their rebuild.

The team results have not been there, but Matthews' individual results have been.

Keller has really started to hit his stride offensively over the past three seasons and has been the team's go-to offensive player. And he has been very good in that role.

The 25-year-old has scored at least 30 goals in back-to-back seasons, and he would have done it in three straight seasons had he not suffered a leg injury late in the 2021-22 season that sidelined him.

He is signed long-term to a pretty team friendly contract ($7.15 million against the salary cap) over the next four seasons. He is also still in his prime and should be a key building block for Utah as it transitions to a new city and works to build a new fanbase.

Utah's new ownership and its salary-cap situation could result in a big offseason that might actually get him some help as well.

Keller was the No. 7 overall pick in the 2016 draft.

The Canucks have never had the No. 1 overall pick in the draft, and throughout their rebuild in the late 2010s and early 2020s, they never had any lottery luck despite their lack of results on the ice.

However, they hit a home run with the No. 5 overall pick in 2017 when they landed a franchise player in Pettersson.

The 25-year-old has developed into a sensational offensive player over the years and cashed in this year with a massive contract extension that pays him more than $11 million per season.

It's a steep price, but he can be one of the most electrifying players in hockey with the puck and is an outstanding playmaker.

The Canucks have built a solid core with Pettersson and Quinn Hughes leading the top of the roster, and either one of them would have been a great pick here. Both are bona fide franchise players.

The Golden Knights do not have many homegrown players on their current roster.

That's not because they have done a bad job drafting and developing, but mostly because they have spent their entire existence trading draft picks and prospects in an effort to win in the present.

It's difficult to argue with the results.

Thompson is an interesting player because he was undrafted and signed with the team in 2020. He worked his way up through the system and turned himself into a very capable NHL goalie who has consistently performed at a better than league average level when healthy.

That has been the one thing holding him back a bit during his career, but he is a good goalie and at the moment the best homegrown player on the roster by a pretty significant margin.

The greatest Capital of them all and the greatest goal-scorer any of us have seen, whether he officially catches Wayne Gretzky's record or not.

When you take into account the era he has played in and how down goal-scoring was leaguewide in the early stages of it, not to mention the time he missed due to shortened seasons, and his numbers are nothing short of staggering.

And the 38-year-old is still going pretty strong.

He helped lead a rebuilding and undermanned Capitals team into the playoffs this season and scored 30 goals for the 18th time in his 19-year career.

The only year he did not score 30 goals was the 2020-21 season when he appeared in just 45 games. He still scored 24 goals that year.

He is 41 goals away from matching Gretzky's all-time goals record and 42 away from setting a new mark. There is a real chance he will do it late next season.

The Capitals picked him No. 1 overall in 2004, and it was a move that changed the franchise forever. It put them back on the map, made it relevant again and eventually lead to the Stanley Cup going to the nation's capital.

Ovechkin is a legend of the game, in Washington and the NHL as a whole.

When Hellebuyck is playing at his best, there are almost no goalies in the NHL better than him, and he is the type of player who can elevate a mediocre team into something competitive.

That is exactly what he did during the 2023-24 season.

The Jets paid a steep price to keep him in Winnipeg, signing him to a seven-year. $59.5 million contract extension.

If the 31-year-old plays like he did this past season, he will be worth every penny of that deal and give the Jets a chance every night.

The only knock on Hellebuyck at this point is that his recent playoff showings have left something to be desired, but part of that could be the fact the Jets make him play one of the heaviest workloads in the league during the regular season.

He already has one Vezina Trophy in his career and has been in the top five of the voting several other times.

Hellebuyck was a fifth-round pick in 2012.