Zero Hurricanes on the Top 20 Wings List

NHL Network put out their top 20 wings in hockey on Sunday. It's the first of a nine-part series, so there's more coming, and I'm sure the centers and defensemen lists will have Canes on them.

But there are no Hurricanes on this one. None. From the team that just won the Stanley Cup.

I've read it twice now and I still can't make it work.

Jarvis

Seth Jarvis scored 32 goals last season in 71 games. He led the team, and he did it while missing eleven.

Lucas Raymond is ranked 20th on this list. He scored 25.

Brady Tkachuk is 18th. He scored 22 in 60 games, and then Carolina swept his team out of the first round in four straight.

Sam Reinhart is 14th with 29 goals and 61 points. Jarvis had 32 and 66.

Now, I get the argument. Raymond had 76 points, ten more than Jarvis. Tkachuk's got the name and the Olympic gold and the trade to Florida. Reinhart's got two Cups and a 57-goal season on the résumé. These aren't crazy picks.

But goals aren't the only thing Jarvis does, and this is where the list loses me.

Seven game-winning goals, most on the team. Four shorthanded goals. Twenty-one of his points came on the power play and six more came shorthanded. He kills penalties on a team that built its entire identity on defending, and he's still putting up 30-plus goals.

Most of the guys on this list do one job. Jarvis does all of them, at 24, on the best team in the league.

If your top 20 wings can't find room for the leading goal scorer on the Stanley Cup champion, I think the list is measuring something narrower than "best wings."

Svechnikov

This one's more personal for me, because I was one of the people who was down on Svech could be for a little while.

Two years ago Svech had 48 points in 72 games. Twenty goals. That was his worst points-per-game season since his rookie year. He was still moving like a guy protecting the knee after the ACL, and the story around him was that the second overall pick from 2018 was just going to be a good-not-great winger and we should make peace with it.

Then last season he had 31 goals and 70 points in 79 games. Twelve power-play goals, a hundred forty-eight hits, 203 shots.

Seventy points is more than Reinhart's 61 at number 14. It's more than Tkachuk's 59 at number 18.

And then the playoffs, which is the part that actually gets me. Eleven points in 19 games. The overtime winner in Game 3 against Montreal. Two power-play goals in Game 5 of the Cup Final, the 4-2 win that put Carolina up 3-2 in the series.

He didn't just put up better numbers than half the guys on this list. He went through several of them.

What I think is actually going on

I don't think this is a conspiracy against Carolina. I think it's simpler and a little more annoying than that.

These lists get built from a mix of counting stats, national TV exposure, and reputation, and Carolina is bad at two of those three. Jarvis and Svechnikov play in a market that doesn't get the broadcast windows, on a team whose whole thing is structure rather than individual highlight reels, for a coach who genuinely does not care whether his players get individual recognition.

Kirill Kaprizov signed for $17 million and made the list at number 3. Kyle Connor's at 11 on a $12 million deal. Nylander's at 10 at $11.5 million. Marner's 4th at $12 million.

Jarvis makes $7.9 million. Svechnikov makes $7.75 million. Carolina's model is to have a lot of very good players instead of a couple of expensive ones, and one side effect of that model is that none of your guys ever look like a top-10 anything.

The team wins. The individuals stay invisible. I've made my peace with that trade most days.

But not really

Here's my honest take. I don't think Jarvis or Svechnikov belongs in the top five. Kucherov had 130 points and a Hart. Pastrnak's got four straight hundred-point seasons. That's a different tier and I'm not going to pretend otherwise.

But 20th? 19th? 18th?

Jarvis outscored three of the guys ahead of him in goals. Svechnikov outscored two of them in points. Both of them played 19 playoff games in June while most of that list was watching.

Put one of them on. Take Tkachuk off, who played 60 games and got swept by the team he'd be replaced by. That's not a hard call.

Anyway, I'll take the Cup. But I'd also take a little credit for the guys who won it.