There are 475 forwards on the 2026-27 board with enough NHL history to project. This post is about the top of it: the 25 centers and 25 wingers the model likes most, where the gaps between them are big enough to mean something, how far down each position you can go before the points fall off, and the handful of forwards who lead a category without cracking the top 40 in points. Numbers are from the 2026-09-08 run and every total is for 84 games, which is what this season has.
The two boards below are live — they re-rank every time the projection is rebuilt, and the next rebuild comes when camp lines are in. You need to be signed in to see them.
Centers
The model's miss on a season of points is about ten either way, so read this board in tiers, not ranks. McDavid is a tier by himself at 129. MacKinnon, Celebrini and Draisaitl are the next one, 122 to 115 — close enough that the order between them is noise. Then the biggest gap on the center board, 10 points down to Hughes at 105, and another 6 to Suzuki. From there it flattens: the drop from the 6th center to the 12th is 12 points, and from the 12th to the 24th another 15.
Celebrini at 117 is worth a sentence. He scored 115 last season at 19, and the model gives a 20-year-old the largest age bump on the board (+16% on goals), plus 0.80 more minutes a night. That is how a 115-point season becomes a 117-point projection without the model assuming anything about his game beyond "he is 20".
Two names lower down come with a caveat. Barkov (83, 14th among centers) did not play in 2025-26; his projection is built from 2024-25 and earlier and will not know anything about how he looks in September until camp. Matthews (81) played 60 games last season for 53 points after 78 the year before, and the three-season average splits the difference — the model neither believes the 78 nor the 53.
Wingers
One gap on the wing board is bigger than anything on the center board: Kucherov at 124, then 20 points of nothing, then Pastrnak at 104. And Kucherov's number is already the model being cautious — he scored 130 in 76 games last season, and the age curve at 33 takes 7% off. Below Pastrnak the wingers are packed tighter than the centers: 95 at third to 86 at twelfth is 9 points across ten players, which is inside the model's error. If you are choosing between the 4th winger and the 10th, the projection cannot tell them apart.
How deep each position goes
Projected points at the 12th, 24th, 36th and 48th player at each position.
Centers and wingers run about even through the top 24, then the centers hold up slightly better. Defense is a different shape entirely — the 12th defenseman projects for 60, roughly the 49th winger — which is the defense post's subject. Of the top 100 skaters on the board, 44 are centers, 45 are wingers and 11 are defensemen.
Forwards who only matter in category leagues
Points is one way to order the board. Shots, hits, blocks and power-play points each produce another, and the interesting players are the ones near the top of a category board and nowhere near the top of the points board.
Brady Tkachuk is the clearest case: 326 projected shots, 3rd among forwards, with 249 hits on top, and a points rank of 50. The hits board has no overlap with the points board at all — Kiefer Sherwood leads the league at 401 projected hits and ranks 242nd in points. In a league that counts hits, he is a starter; in a points league he does not exist.
What this board does not know
Ice time is last season's until camp lines are synced, so a forward who moves up a line or onto the first power-play unit in September is not reflected here yet. The board has no ADP or roster-percentage data, so it says who the model projects higher, not who gets drafted earlier. Rookies with no NHL games get no projection, and players with fewer than 20 NHL games get a flag instead of a number. The totals are full-season; the fantasy page's "expected" mode applies injury-adjusted games and is the better number for a keeper or best-ball format.