Top Five NHL Teams With the Weakest Top-Six Forward Groups Entering 2023-24

Adam Proteau ranks five NHL teams whose top six forwards feature some strong players but are overall the weakest in the league as a group.

With the NHL’s 2023-24 regular season mere days away, THN.com is evaluating the depth (or lack thereof) of team rosters.

On Wednesday, we analyzed the NHL’s top five teams in terms of their top-six forward groups. Today, we’re looking at the other end of that spectrum, identifying the five teams with the weakest top-six forward groups.

Don’t interpret that to mean the five teams we pick are totally bereft of elite talent. Instead, we’re labelling teams based on their overall collection of their best six forwards. Some strong forwards may not cancel out others in the top six who wouldn't be there on other teams.

With that in mind, here are this writer’s choices (in reverse order) for the five teams with a top six that isn't as solid as the rest of the NHL:

Top six group: Anders Lee (LW), Bo Horvat (C), Mathew Barzal (RW), Pierre Engvall (LW), Brock Nelson (C), Julien Gauthier (RW)

The Calgary Flames were among a few teams in contention for this fifth-lowest spot, but in the end, we gave it to the Islanders. Again, this is not to suggest the Isles have a complete and total lack of upper-tier talent in their top-six forward group. Indeed, Lee, Horvat and Barzal are very good players, and Nelson had a 36-goal, 75-point season in 2022-23.

However, Engvall is not a top-six player on a good team – in Toronto, he wasn’t always good enough even to be a fourth-liner – and Gauthier is on his third NHL team in the past two seasons for good reason. At 25, Gauthier has the time and opportunity to grow his game, but like Engvall, he’s simply not shown enough to be regarded as a legitimate top-six forward in this league. 

The Isles have better fortune on their back end with their defensemen and goalies, but when it comes to their forwards, there’s much that’s lacking.

Top six group: Taylor Hall (LW), Connor Bedard (C), Ryan Donato (RW), Tyler Johnson (LW), Lukas Reichel (C), Andreas Athanasiou (RW)

Even with the addition of budding young superstar Bedard, the Blackhawks’ depth at all positions is questionable at best. The 31-year-old Hall has become a journeyman of sorts, and first-year Hawk Donato has never scored more than 16 goals in a single NHL season. 

Things get worse from there, as the 33-year-old Johnson is far past his prime. Reichel holds some promise, but he’s got only 34 games of NHL experience, and on a legitimate Stanley Cup contender, he’d be well down the depth chart. While Athanasiou had a bounce-back season in '22-23 with 20 goals and 40 points in 81 games, he’d likely be a third-liner on many, if not most, Cup front-runners.

With Bedard leading the way, the Blackhawks likely won’t make this list a season or two from now. But as it stands, Chicago clearly remains in the early stages of a lengthy and full rebuild, and their dearth of first-rate forward talent reflects that fact.

Top six group: Joel Farabee (LW), Sean Couturier (C), Travis Konecny (RW), Owen Tippett (LW), Morgan Frost (C), Cam Atkinson (RW)

Like the Blackhawks, the Flyers are in the midst of completely making over their roster with an eye toward the future – and their current mix of youngsters and veterans makes their top six forwards far from playoff-caliber. 

For one thing, two members of their top six – 30-year-old Couturier and 34-year-old Atkinson – did not play a single game last season while they recovered from injury. For another thing, although Farabee and Konecny are above-average performers, neither would be considered to be among the very best at their position.

Youngsters Frost and Tippett are going to be Flyers for the long haul, but until such time as they ascend to the top of their profession, Philadelphia is not going to have one of the NHL’s top 15 groups of top six forwards, let alone one of the top five groups.

Top six group: Filip Forsberg (LW), Ryan O’Reilly (C), Juuso Parssinen (RW), Gustav Nyquist (LW), Cody Glass (C), Denis Gurianov (RW)

Under first-year GM Barry Trotz, the Predators drastically re-jigged their forwards unit this summer, and the results are not especially intimidating. 

Though Forsberg is a solid talent, O’Reilly is 32 and has a lot of miles on his individual odometer. While he might be a second-line center on many teams, the fact O’Reilly is Nashville’s top pivot is an indictment of their overall talent up front. So is the fact that Parssinen has just a half-season of NHL experience to his credit, and even then, he produced at approximately a 12-goal pace. This is your top-line right winger? Yikes.

On the second line, another veteran – 34-year-old Nyquist – is a newcomer to the Preds, and he’s projected to be alongside Glass and Gurianov, who was cast aside by two NHL teams last season. Giving their youngsters opportunities to jump into the top six is Trotz’s plan and can pay off in the long term, but at this moment, we can’t pretend they’re an imposing group of forwards.

Top six group: Alexander Barabanov (LW), Logan Couture (C), Anthony Duclair (RW), Mike Hoffman (LW), Tomas Hertl (C), Kevin Labanc (RW)

The Sharks were one of the league’s worst teams last season, in no small part because their forward group did not have nearly enough quality depth. And after an off-season of major change, they might be even worse this season, even if by design. 

Couture is now 34 years old, and the last time he was a truly elite forward was in the 2017-18 campaign. Hertl is a reliably above-average player, but his production took a step backward last season, dipping from 30 goals in 2021-22 to 22 in 2022-23.

Other than that, all four of their projected top four wingers are either castoffs from multiple teams (Duclair, Hoffman) or decent but nowhere near spectacular players (Labanc and Barabanov, who combined for 30 goals and 80 points last year). 

Sharks GM Mike Grier is under no illusions as to the mountainous task of being legitimately competitive in 2023-24. But by the time the trade deadline arrives, looming UFAs Barabanov, Duclair, Hoffman and Labanc all could be dealt away, meaning there’s still room at the bottom for San Jose’s forwards to fall even deeper. For now, though, they just don’t have the depth to be a consistent winner in hockey’s best league.