BLOG: Edmonton Oilers earn top honours in NHLPA Player Poll

EDMONTON, AB - Oilers fans know they get to witness the best of the best, and today the players around the National Hockey League confirmed that fact.
The annual
NHLPA Players Poll was released on Wednesday morning
, with the opinions of 626 NHL players represented in the results. The best of the NHL were canvassed on a variety of on-and-off the ice topics, and once again the Edmonton Oilers were littered throughout the results.
First and foremost, Connor McDavid was voted as the forward most players would want on their team in a must-win game, garnering the lion share of the vote at 59.3 per cent -- a whopping 48.3 percentage points better than the second-place vote getter Sidney Crosby. McDavid, who is in the midst of the most historic season of the salary cap era, bolstered his lead in the category he won over the Penguins icon in last year's poll. In 2021-22, the Oilers captain finished with 42.4 per cent of the vote, compared to the second-place Crosby's 17.4 per cent.
The players choice was made with ample reason. This year, McDavid has been more likely to register at least four points in a game (10 times) than he is to be shut out (seven times) -- a pretty good trait to have in a must-win game.

Leon Draisaitl once again backhand burger flipped his way to being voted the NHL's best passer, garnering 25.0 per cent of the votes. The German superstar edged out Patrick Kane (13.0 per cent), Nikita Kucherov (10.5 per cent), Artemi Panarin (7.8 per cent), and his teammate McDavid (7.7 per cent) for the honours. Draisaitl won the category in last season's poll as well with 17.7 per cent of the vote, but upped his share of the results to one out of every four votes in 2022-23.
Rogers Place continued its streak of excellence as one of the best rinks in the entire NHL to put blade to ice, finishing second to the Bell Centre in Montreal for the league's best skating surface. The Oilers arena has narrowed the gap between themselves and the Canadiens barn over the last year. Rogers Place notched 14.7 per cent to the Bell Centre's 35.0 per cent in this season's vote, in contrast to last season's 13.7 per cent and 39.6 per cent respectively.
McDavid's name was littered throughout the rest of the NHLPA poll's results. The 27-year-old was voted as the NHL's second-best stick handler behind Patrick Kane, the fourth-most complete player, the second-place player that 'you hate to play against, but would want on your team', and the fifth most impactful player in front of the net.
Fans can see the full results from the poll HERE.
View last season's results HERE.