On Tuesday, The Athletic author Harman Dayal put out a piece ranking each of the NHL's top-six center duos -- the top two centers on each team. The list was broken into eight tiers, with only one team in the top tier (Edmonton) and one team in the bottom tier (Calgary). Everyone else was ranked somewhere in between.
The New Jersey Devils, whose top two centers are the game-breaking Jack Hughes and the two-way jack-of-all-trades Nico Hischier, somehow ranked in the third tier. Sure, they were fourth overall, and that is something that, in theory, they should be proud of, but the ranking should draw some scrutiny.
The three teams the Devils' dynamic duo were placed behind included the Colorado Avalanche (Nathan MacKinnon and Brock Nelson) and the Florida Panthers (Aleksander Barkov and Sam Bennett). Of course, Edmonton is untouchable in this exercise, so no qualms should be had there. The other two, though, should raise some question marks.
Nico Hischier and Jack Hughes make up a top-five center duo
The MacKinnon effect is real -- there is certainly an argument to be had that he is the second-best player in the league, and that in and of itself should catapult the Avalanche to right near the top of the rankings. 34-year-old Brock Nelson, though, should limit them to some capacity. J. Hughes is a closer player to MacKinnon than Nelson is to Hischier, and it isn't particularly close, either. Jack is a top-seven player in the NHL when healthy at worst and is just entering his prime. Hischier, who is seven years younger than Nelson, has consistently outproduced his counterpart, sported better underlying statistics throughout his career, and gets much more difficult matchups to boot.
The bigger issue from the get go was that the Panthers were listed above New Jersey. Barkov is a phenomenal two-way player who unequivocally deserves his flowers, but he respectfully doensn't hold a candle to Jack. Bennett is barely a second-line caliber player. Dayal, the author of the piece, cited the intangibles that both Panthers' centers bring to the table, and while that argument works for some, it's a laughable one when evaluating talent at this level.
According to Dayal, the Devils are one of two teams sporting two top-20 centers in the NHL, and insinuated that the only thing holding them back from being placed higher up in the ranking was Jack's health and faceoff skills. However, if we're talking about health, it should absolutely be noted that Barkov has dealt with his own consistent injury bugs over the years -- why is that an argument that only holds water when it comes to No. 86? Furthermore, the gap between Hischier and Bennett is large enough to catapult the Devils far above the Panthers' duo.
Does it actually matter where the Devils' top two centers are in this exercise? Of course not. But, there are bigger implications there -- New Jersey's centers remain undervalued, even if they are both "top-20" in the league. All is well, though; they'll more than prove the ranking wrong with a fully healthy 2026-27. They're unquestionably the second-best center duo in the NHL.
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