Top Five Hobey Baker Candidates Heading Into The 2026-27 NCAA Season

Another year of college hockey is right around the corner, with games starting on Oct. 2, and what fun would it be to enter the season without a little bit of speculation?

As the quality of players in college hockey continues to rise, thanks to the CHL rule change and the money sloshing around the NCAA these days, the list of challengers for the most prestigious prize in college hockey looks more and more like a who's who of future NHL stars.

This year should be no different, with a raft of current and future first-round picks likely to be in the running, plus some of the most impressive returning players in the country.

So who are the top Hobey Baker picks for this season? Here are five:

Ryker Lee and Michigan State as a whole are in an interesting situation. In the off-season, they lost some of the best players in college hockey during the 2025-26 season. Names like Porter Martone and two-time Mike Richter Award finalist Trey Augustine, as well as Charlie Stramel and Daniel Russell, who finished second and third on the team in scoring, respectively, moved on to professional hockey.

So Lee, who posted 15 goals and 15 assists for 30 points in 35 games and played just 15 minutes per game last year, steps into a top-line role and will be counted on to drive much of the offense.

The Spartans will have several younger players, including nine freshmen, but most are first-round picks who could hit the ground running. If so, and if MSU can largely replace the scoring and goaltending they lost, Lee should be at the center of another successful season.

Dean Letourneau was a monster for BC last season, and should be the top scorer on the team after James Hagens went pro. Like Hagens, Letourneau is a first-round pick of the Boston Bruins, and if he can even come close to his 22 goals from last season, he should be a terror to opposing defenses in Hockey East.

At 6-foot-7 and an official listed weight of almost 240 pounds, no one will be able to physically contain him, so as long as he gets a little help from Oscar Hemming, another first-round pick, and guys like Will Moore and Teddy Stiga, the Eagles offense could really hum.

Wyttenbach led the nation in scoring last season, with 25 goals and 34 assists for 59 points. And the Flames third-rounder did that as a freshman for a dominant Quinnipiac team.

Well, great news for the Bobcats: He and most of the other difference-makers from last year are back, and look primed to take a step as a team after upgrading the goaltending and adding depth via the transfer portal.

Wyttenbach wasn't a Hobey finalist last season (voters apparently held QU's weakish strength of schedule against him, which feels a little unfair). Still, if he can even take a slight step forward as a sophomore, he'll be impossible to ignore.

Speaking of bringing back talent, the Wolverines returned literally everyone from last year except a couple graduating seniors, and added a ton of premium talent to the roster as well.

Hage, a Montreal Canadiens first-round pick, could have easily gone pro instead of coming back for one more year, and if he feels the team has unfinished business, they're gonna make it everyone else's problem.

The reason Hage wasn't as in the mix as he could have been last season was that, while he put up a ton of points (13 goals, 39 assists and 52 points in 39 games), Hobey voters really like you to have more goals than that, so being third in the country in points isn't as impressive to them.

If, like Wyttenbach, Hage can increase his production somewhat, he can become impossible to ignore, too. But even if he puts up 52 points again, and there's a more even mix of goals and assists, the rest of the team should be good enough that he's, at minimum, a top-3 finalist.

There's a very simple reason Plante is No. 1 on the list: He won the Hobey last year, and arguably upgraded his help.

Plante becomes the first Hobey winner to go back to school for another season since 2007, and it looks like coach Scott Sandelin is making an easy decision when filling out his lineup sheet: The top line will read "Plante-Plante-Plante."

Max will center his brothers, Zam (a fellow junior and a 2022 Pittsburgh Penguins fifth-round pick) and Victor (a freshman and a 2026 Detroit Red Wings second-round pick), for another go-round. He went for 25 goals and 27 assists for 52 points last season with phenomenal underlying numbers.

Can't say they won't have a lot of chemistry on that top line, and if they can even remotely build on what already won Max a Hobey, there's no reason he shouldn't be the favorite again.

No one's ever won two Hobey's before, but there's a first time for everything.

Honorable mentions: Keaton Verhoeff (North Dakota), Johnny Hicks (Denver), Joey Muldowney (UConn)

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