Quoting: BeterChiarelli
"Best" is a really poor question here. Best at what?
If I want to start a player in all situations - perhaps up or down a goal at the end of the game - I'm going to look to player C (looks like an all situations type) to be on the ice. If I need to establish offense, I'm looking at player A as the sum of their offensive starts and neutral starts suggests a player that's leaned on to drive possession towards the other net. Player F looks like the ideal candidate to hit the ice following a penalty kill as their high OTF starts and offensive starts show a player that can swing momentum. You can't derive "best" from usage stats.
You're really quick to defend against any Hughes v Draisaitl discourse but I don't think you understood the point of my retort: Hughes is a phenomenal player, but to hold him in high esteem while negging on Draisaitl seems ridiculous as you can almost do a one-to-one comparison of each player's flaws. That's the only point I wanted to make. Draisaitl has, since he broke out, been made out to he nothing more than a powerplay merchant and a product of McDavid: he's a great player in his own right and wholly deserving of a place within the top-10 in the league. Hughes is right in that conversation with him.
Quoting: Leafsfan98
Jack Hughes
-- O-zone: 20.8%
-- Neutral zone: 13.2%
-- D-zone: 3.7%
-- On the fly: 62.3%
https://www.moneypuck.com/stats.htm
That ranks Hughes 729th in D-zone starts...
Using deployment % to compare two players on different teams is a flawed starting point.
Deployment on the ice is more a reflection of that player's skills and effectiveness compared to and in relationship to his available teammates based on shifts, game situations, opponents, and coaching tactics.
Because Draisatl is an elite offensive player his coach is going to use him accordingly. Hyman is a well above average defensive winger so he is going to be more utilized in a defensive zone (he also is a good offensive player so he will be used there too). All coaches and GMs try to build their roster around maximizing their players best attributes to achieve the team's highest and best performance.
I do not rate Draisatl very high as an effective two-way player; based on all the games I've watched so I'm not saying he would be if used there more often. But he is like Ovechkin or Pastrnak as a goal-scorer but can win 60% faceoffs and is an elite passer like Kucherov/Panarin. I don't see him as an "elite center" but he is an elite player because his "position" is more of a role and not an assignment as we traditionally think of them; this is why the Oilers seem to move him around with different linemates and the chemistry doens't always work out. He is an extremely perfect complementary player with McDavid which is not as easy as people think.
Nate MacKinnon is not a two-way player either, but he is so elite at transitioning from zone to zone and has such high-end skating and puck skills that it dwarfs that one area of his game; and he usually has complimentary wingers to ensure he can do that effectively and consistently. He does things that very few can do and trying to turn him in to something he isn't would only backfire.
It's apples and oranges.
Barkov is really great at all areas of the game, but he isn't in that elite goal-scorer or elite speedster/puckhandler category so he never gets mentioned as a "top 5" player in the world. Maybe he ranks 15th in everything (just throwing out numbers) but would be 10th overall if you could aggregrate someone and weigh all the variables that make a hockey player good (we can't).
McDavid, Draisatl, Matthews, Bedard, Crosby, MacKinnon, Makar, Kucherov, Panarin, Hughes, Hughes all have elite of the elite skills in certain areas of the game; best in the world shots or skating or puckhandling or vision or passing or playmaking (not the same thing as passing).
The closest player to "perfect" (across the board in all situations and with elite skills in every area) that I've seen play in the past 20 years or so was peak Crosby. Right now I would say that Makar is the closest (his shot being the one area that doesn't compare to other elite shooters, but he is near-elite there too). McDavid is a much better pure skater, puck handler than Crosby was but he is nowhere near the defensive awareness that Crosby had at that point (basically when it gets "in tight" going backwards his skating becomes a skill that doesn't factor in as much; same for MacKinnon).
Peak Crosby could make just about anyone on his line into an all-star.
"Best Player" is such a subjective title but I view it as the one player that you would trust in any situation, either game 7 of a series or carrying a team thru the long regular season grind and playoffs; or in a single game down by a goal or up by a goal or 5, taking the pressure minutes and turning out diamonds.
I don't know that Jack Hughes is in that category for me in the current NHL yet. He certainly has the skills and tools; but it's more than just the individual skills, its the sum of the parts and whether or not it makes the players around them much better. His highlights are great, but I just need to see it mature into an overall elite effective game before I would annoint him into top 5 status.
If you were to reset the NHL and re-draft the entire league without contracts or cap hits and you only get to play for 1 full season and playoffs this way (you lose all your players and we reset the next year).
Assuming everyone is 100% healthy to start the season. You, as the GM, only get paid if you win the cup (first you have to get there); which players would go in the top 5 of the draft?
For me, top 4 is "easy":
Makar
McDavid
MacKinnon
Vasilevskiy
#5 is where it gets so hard (not in ranked order):
Draisatl
Kucherov
Pastrnak
Matthews
These guys are probably just a notch below the group above but so close:
Crosby
Eichel
Barkov
Rantanen
J. Hughes
Panarin
Hedman
McAvoy
Doughty
Sorokin
Shesterkin
Hellebuyck
M. Tkachuk
Landeskog
Stone
Q. Hughes
Fox
Josi