Tampa Bay Lightning place two players in NHL Network’s Top 20 Wings Right Now

It’s the season of countdowns and the NHL Network is rolling through their annual rankings of players at various positions. They kicked things off with their Top 10 goaltenders with Andrei Vasilevskiy ranking third (down from the top spot the year before). Their latest list tackles the top 20 wings in the game and a couple of Bolts made the cut.

Newly acquired Jake Guentzel comes in at #16, just ahead of Clayton Keller and behind Kyle Connor. The network points out that he has three straight 30-goal seasons and 67 playoff points (38 goals, 29 assists) in 69 games. Those are some nice numbers that Lightning fans are hoping he improves on next season.

Old friend Steven Stamkos shows up in the 13th spot (the second year in a row he’s made the cut at the winger position), but sitting on top of everyone is Nikita Kucherov. The reigning Art Ross champion was third last season, but a MVP-caliber season vaulted him to the top over Matthew Tkachuk and Mikko Rantanen.

It’s doubtful that Kucherov cares much for an honor like this, he’d rather see another Stanley Cup on the trophy shelf, but it’s always nice when the national media acknowledges his excellence on the ice. We might complain from time to time that the big media folks tend to overlook Lightning players, but when a player puts together a season like Kucherov did last year, it’s impossible to ignore.

Congrats to Jake and Nikita on these pre-season honors. Hopefully, we’ll see them top the list again next summer.