Right wing is where the NHL keeps its purest scorers, and it’s also the position where the gap between the top two and everyone else is the widest in hockey right now. Nikita Kucherov and David Pastrnak have turned the top of this list into a formality — between them, they own the last two Hart Trophies and seven straight 100-point seasons.
Below them, though, it gets messy fast: a 51-goal scorer, a first-time 100-point man, and a 40-goal kid barely out of his teens all have real cases for the same handful of spots. Here, The Hockey Beast lists the ten best right wings in the NHL heading into 2026-27.
NHL’s top right wingers
10: Dylan Guenther, Utah Mammoth Guenther was one of only three players under 23 to score 40 goals last season, alongside Macklin Celebrini and Wyatt Johnston, and the underlying numbers say it wasn’t luck — he ranked third among all forwards in goals per 60 minutes at 5-on-5. The scary part is he did it on less than 17 minutes a night.
9: Sam Reinhart, Florida Panthers Reinhart led the Panthers in goals and points for a third straight season at age 30, and since arriving in Florida in 2021 he’s led the franchise in goals, points, power-play goals and game-winners. The 57-goal outlier from 2023-24 isn’t coming back, but two Stanley Cup rings suggest that was never really the point.
8: William Nylander, Toronto Maple Leafs Nylander led Toronto in assists and points last season and now owns the most overtime goals in Maple Leafs history, passing Auston Matthews and Mats Sundin. He’s eight goals from becoming the sixth Leaf ever to reach 300, and he’s doing it on a team that has gotten demonstrably worse around him.
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7: Martin Necas, Colorado Avalanche Necas broke 100 points for the first time in his career (38 goals, 62 assists in 78 games) in his first full season with Colorado. The fair caveat: Nathan MacKinnon had a hand in 42 of those 100 points, and Necas shot 18.4 percent. The less fair caveat is that playing beside MacKinnon is a skill in itself, and Necas led Czechia in scoring at the Olympics without him.
6: Cole Caufield, Montreal Canadiens Caufield scored 51 goals and became the seventh player in Canadiens history to hit 50 — the first since Stephane Richer in 1989-90. He also won the Lady Byng with 14 penalty minutes all season while averaging the fewest minutes of any top-25 scorer in the league. Efficient doesn’t quite cover it.
5: Mitch Marner, Vegas Golden Knights Marner’s first year in Vegas produced 80 points and a team-high 29 in 22 playoff games, including the fastest hat trick in Stanley Cup Final history — three goals in 6:10 in Game 3. Vegas lost that series, but nobody left it questioning the eight-year, $96 million contract.
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4: Matt Boldy, Minnesota Wild Boldy set career highs across the board with 42 goals and 85 points, then scored six minutes into Team USA’s gold medal game against Canada at the Olympics — the fastest goal to open a gold medal game in Olympic history with NHL players. He led the Wild in playoff goals too. This was the year he stopped being a good young winger and became a star.
3: Mikko Rantanen, Dallas Stars Rantanen put up 77 points in 64 games — a 1.20 points-per-game rate that ranked 15th in the entire league — while missing 18 games with injury. He’s now the fourth Finnish-born player to reach 300 NHL goals, joining Selanne, Kurri and Jokinen. We still haven’t seen a fully healthy Rantanen season in Dallas.
2: David Pastrnak, Boston Bruins Pastrnak has now posted four consecutive 100-point seasons, and here’s the context that makes it absurd: across those same four years, no other Boston player has managed more than 68 points in a single season. He’s 67 points from 1,000 in the NHL.
1: Nikita Kucherov, Tampa Bay Lightning Kucherov put up 130 points, a plus-43 rating and a league-best 1.71 points per game last season, which earned him his second Hart Trophy by a 10-point margin over Connor McDavid. Over the past three seasons combined, he leads the entire NHL in assists, points and power-play points. He turns 33 this season and there’s no sign of it mattering.
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