On June 12, 2026, the Professional Hockey Writers Association released the annual NHL All-Star Teams, and the list reads less like a roll call and more like a highlight reel from one of the most statistically overwhelming regular seasons in modern hockey history. Five players scored 45 or more goals. The NHL’s top three scorers all eclipsed 127 points. A teenager played 24-plus minutes a night and did not look remotely out of place doing it. And a defenseman from Columbus, Ohio, a franchise that has spent the better part of two decades searching for its identity, finally claimed the most prestigious individual award on the blue line.
The hardware was spread across the map. The records were shattered with startling regularity. The debates were fierce. And the All-Star Teams, when they finally arrived, told a story worth unpacking position by position.
The 2025-26 NHL First All-Star Team
G: Andrei Vasilevskiy, Tampa Bay Lightning
Andrei Vasilevskiy went 39-15 with a 2.31 GAA, a .912 save percentage, and two shutouts across 58 appearances in 2025-26, and won his third Vezina Trophy in the process. His third First All-Star Team selection at goaltender ties him with Connor Hellebuyck for the most among active netminders, a remarkable achievement for a man who bottomed out at a .900 save percentage just two seasons ago and quietly rebuilt his case from the ground up.
What is easy to forget amid the statistical conversation is the context surrounding the Lightning this season. Tampa Bay finished with 106 points and was eventually eliminated in the first round by the Montreal Canadiens, but Vasilevskiy was never the problem. He was, in many respects, the reason that team stayed relevant as long as it did. The Vezina finalists included Ilya Sorokin, who led the league with seven shutouts, and Jeremy Swayman, who won 31 games, and Vasilevskiy beat them both. That is not luck. That is legacy.
D: Cale Makar, Colorado Avalanche
Cale Makar posted 20 goals, 59 assists, and 79 points in 75 games with a +32 plus-minus and an average of 24:51 of ice time per night. He was a Norris Trophy finalist and walked away with his fourth First All-Star Team selection, second only to Erik Karlsson’s five among active defensemen. At 25 years old, he is already carving out a conversation that belongs in the highest company the position has ever seen.
There is a case to be made that Makar’s season was underappreciated precisely because he was surrounded by excellence. Colorado won the Presidents’ Trophy at 55-16-11 and 121 points, the franchise’s fourth such honor. When your team is that good, individual production can blur together. But 79 points in 75 games from a defenseman who also carries the responsibility Makar does at both ends of the ice is not noise. It is dominance with context.
D: Zach Werenski, Columbus Blue Jackets
There is no more compelling individual story anywhere on the 2025-26 First All-Star Team than Zach Werenski. The 28-year-old Michigan native posted 22 goals, 59 assists, and 81 points in 75 games, led all NHL defensemen with a 26:37 average ice time per game, and won the James Norris Memorial Trophy, the first in Columbus Blue Jackets franchise history.
The first in franchise history.
Columbus is a franchise that has employed Rick Nash and Sergei Bobrovsky and traded away a future Hall of Famer in Artemi Panarin. It has never produced a Norris winner. Werenski, a player drafted eighth overall in 2015 who spent years putting up 40-to-57 point seasons before his offensive game exploded in consecutive 80-plus point campaigns, changed that. He is now one of only five American-born defensemen in NHL history to post multiple 80-point seasons, a group that includes Phil Housley and Brian Leetch. His back-to-back First All-Star Team nods are also the first consecutive All-Star selections for any player in Blue Jackets history.
“It definitely means a lot to be the first Norris winner in franchise history,” Werenski said after winning the trophy. “I’ve been here for 10 years, and it does feel special to win one with the Blue Jackets.”
Ten years. That loyalty, combined with that level of production, is a combination the NHL rarely rewards with this kind of recognition. Columbus got its moment.
C: Connor McDavid, Edmonton Oilers
Connor McDavid led the NHL with 138 points on 48 goals and 90 assists across all 82 games. His 90 assists alone would have placed him in the top five in total scoring in most other seasons. He won his sixth Art Ross Trophy, his fifth Ted Lindsay Award as voted on by his peers, and reached both 400 career goals and 1,200 career points during the regular season. He is now tied with Jean Beliveau, Phil Esposito, and Stan Mikita for the second-most First All-Star Team selections at center all-time, at six. Only Wayne Gretzky, with eight, has more.
He also lost the Hart Trophy to his linemate on this All-Star Team. More on that shortly.
The one asterisk on McDavid’s season, if you can call a 138-point campaign anything short of perfect, is the postseason. Edmonton finished 41-30-11 and was eliminated in the first round by the Anaheim Ducks in six games. Individual brilliance has rarely translated to team success for McDavid’s Oilers in non-Stanley Cup Final years, and that tension remains unresolved.
RW: Nikita Kucherov, Tampa Bay Lightning
Nikita Kucherov posted 44 goals, 86 assists, and 130 points in 76 games with a league-best +43 plus-minus, and won the Hart Memorial Trophy. It is his second Hart, his third consecutive 120-plus point season, and it makes him, alongside McDavid, one of only two players to post multiple 130-point seasons in the 21st century.
The Hart Trophy conversation this season was among the most contested in recent memory. MacKinnon entered the final weeks as a -135 closing favorite. He led the NHL in goals, finished third in points, and helmed a Presidents’ Trophy-winning team to 121 points. He had arguably the statistically superior season. The PHWA ultimately sided with Kucherov, citing the individual weight he carried for a Tampa Bay team without the same structural advantages as Colorado, and it is a defensible verdict. Kucherov scored 104 points over one 50-game stretch, the most by any player over that span since Mario Lemieux in 1995-96. His +43 was the best mark in the entire league. When the Lightning went 1-4-2 to open the season, it was Kucherov who pulled them out of the mud.
He has now earned five First All-Star Team selections at right wing, tying him with Mike Bossy for fifth all-time at the position. He trails only Gordie Howe (12), Maurice Richard (8), Jaromir Jagr (7), and Guy Lafleur (6), and is the most decorated active right wing in that category. He is in elite company and he knows it.
LW: Jason Robertson, Dallas Stars
Jason Robertson returned to the First All-Star Team for the first time since 2022-23 after posting 45 goals, 51 assists, and 96 points in 82 games with a +22 plus-minus. His voting total was 716 points with 95 first-place votes, a comfortable margin over second-place finisher Cole Caufield.
Robertson’s path back is worth acknowledging. After his 109-point breakout season in 2022-23 established him as an elite winger, he followed with quieter 80-point campaigns in each of the next two years. Some wondered whether that initial burst was the ceiling rather than the floor. His 2025-26 season, with 45 goals placing him tied for fourth in the NHL, answered that question firmly. The ceiling is higher than it looked.
The 2025-26 NHL Second All-Star Team
G: Logan Thompson, Washington Capitals
Logan Thompson is undrafted, Nevada-born, and was acquired from the Vegas Golden Knights in a trade that barely registered at the time. In 2025-26, he went 31-21 with a 2.44 GAA, a .912 save percentage, and four shutouts in 58 games for a Washington Capitals team that finished 43-30-9. His .912 save percentage matched Vasilevskiy’s exactly. The four shutouts tied for the league lead among qualified goaltenders. This is his first career All-Star Team selection and it is not a token one.
D: Evan Bouchard, Edmonton Oilers
Evan Bouchard posted 21 goals, 74 assists, and 95 points in 82 games, his 74 assists ranking third in the entire NHL behind only McDavid’s 90 and Kucherov’s 86. To put that in perspective, a defenseman out-assisted virtually every forward in the league. His 95 points also ranked third among all NHL scorers. This is his first career All-Star Team and, given he is 26 years old, it almost certainly will not be his last.
D: Rasmus Dahlin, Buffalo Sabres
Rasmus Dahlin posted 19 goals, 55 assists, and 74 points in 77 games with a +18 plus-minus for a Buffalo Sabres team that won the Atlantic Division at 50-23-9. The franchise’s first division title in over a decade is inseparable from the maturation of its 2018 first-overall pick. Early in his career, Dahlin posted a -36 in a single season. The +18 he put up in 2025-26 is not just a statistical turnaround. It is a franchise transformation, and Dahlin is at the center of it. First career All-Star selection.
C: Nathan MacKinnon, Colorado Avalanche
Nathan MacKinnon’s 53-74-127 regular season, complete with a league-leading +57 plus-minus, 42 even-strength goals, and his first career Rocket Richard Trophy, landed him on the Second All-Star Team after he narrowly lost the Hart to Kucherov. His even-strength point total of 97 was the most in a single season since Wayne Gretzky in 1990-91. His +57 was among the highest figures posted by any skater in recent decades, though it falls outside the top four since 1987-88.
And yet, Colorado was swept in the Western Conference Finals by Vegas, and MacKinnon was not even a Ted Lindsay Award finalist. The season that looked like a runaway MVP campaign from November through April ended without the hardware many assumed was already his. That is the nature of a generation in which McDavid and Kucherov exist simultaneously.
RW: David Pastrnak, Boston Bruins
David Pastrnak reached the 100-point mark for the fourth consecutive time in his career with 29 goals and a career-high 71 assists in 77 games. He is now the only active player other than McDavid and Kucherov with four 100-point seasons, a distinction that says everything about the company he keeps and how routinely overlooked he is in broader NHL conversations. His 71 assists ranked sixth in the entire league. The ability to reinvent your offensive game from a goal-scorer to a play-driver in your prime years is not common. Pastrnak has done it quietly and effectively.
LW: Cole Caufield, Montreal Canadiens
Cole Caufield scored 51 goals in 81 games, ranking second in the NHL behind MacKinnon’s 53, and posted 88 points with a +29 plus-minus. He won the Lady Byng Memorial Trophy and became the first Montreal Canadiens player to score 50 goals in a single season since Stephane Richer in 1990. That name carries considerable weight in Montreal’s goal-scoring history. Caufield, 25 years old and operating alongside Nick Suzuki and Ivan Demidov, is building a case to carry that weight comfortably.
The 2025-26 NHL All-Rookie Team
G: Jakub Dobes, Montreal Canadiens
Jakub Dobes went 29-10-4 with a 2.78 GAA and a .901 save percentage in 43 regular-season games, the most wins of any rookie goaltender in 2025-26. He then started all 19 of Montreal’s postseason contests as the Canadiens advanced to the Eastern Conference Final. The last time a first-year Canadiens goaltender won that many games in the playoffs, the man in the crease was Ken Dryden in 1971.
D: Matthew Schaefer, New York Islanders
Matthew Schaefer won the Calder Trophy unanimously, with all 198 PHWA voters placing him first on their ballots. He is the first unanimous Calder winner since Teemu Selanne’s 76-goal season in 1992-93, and at 18 years and 223 days on the final day of the regular season, he is the youngest Calder Trophy winner in NHL history, edging out Nathan MacKinnon by a single day.
His rookie season statistics redefined what is possible for a teenage defenseman. His 59 points set the second-highest mark ever for an 18-year-old defenseman, trailing only Phil Housley’s 66-point season in 1982-83. His 23 goals tied Brian Leetch’s rookie defenseman record. His 24:41 average ice time is the most ever logged by an 18-year-old in NHL history. Selected first overall by the New York Islanders in the 2025 draft, the hype, for once, was entirely justified.
D: Alexander Nikishin, Carolina Hurricanes
Alexander Nikishin set a Carolina Hurricanes franchise record with 11 goals by a rookie defenseman and added 22 assists for 33 points in 81 regular-season games. He was the only All-Rookie Team member still active in the 2026 playoffs as of the announcement date, playing in the Stanley Cup Final for a Hurricanes team that led the Vegas Golden Knights three games to two.
F: Ivan Demidov, Montreal Canadiens
Ivan Demidov was the only unanimous selection on the All-Rookie Team, receiving all 195 votes, and finished with 62 points on 19 goals and 43 assists across all 82 games. The 2024 fifth-overall pick from Sergiyev Posad, Russia, became just the seventh rookie in Canadiens history to record 60 points in a single season and led all rookies in the playoffs with nine points in 19 games. He did this while playing alongside Caufield and Suzuki on a team that reached the Eastern Conference Final and has not been that far in the playoffs since 2021. The Montreal rebuild, long promised and repeatedly delayed, suddenly looks very real.
F: Beckett Sennecke, Anaheim Ducks
Beckett Sennecke was selected third overall in 2024 and spent his rookie season posting 60 points and 23 goals in 82 games, tying Schaefer for the most rookie goals in 2025-26. He helped the Anaheim Ducks reach the playoffs for the first time since 2018 and, in doing so, eliminated the Edmonton Oilers in the first round. At 20 years old, operating in a market where expectations have been recalibrated around patience, Sennecke delivered results that accelerated the timeline considerably.
F: Jimmy Snuggerud, St. Louis Blues
Jimmy Snuggerud posted 51 points on 21 goals and 30 assists in 70 games, including a dominant 27-point stretch in his final 25 games after the Olympic break. He is the Blues’ first All-Rookie Team selection since Jordan Binnington in 2019, and his late-season surge suggested a player who found his footing and then refused to let go of it.
The Stories That Did Not Make Either Team
Any honest evaluation of the 2025-26 All-Star selections must acknowledge the names that were left off. Macklin Celebrini of San Jose posted 115 points in his sophomore season, was a Ted Lindsay Award finalist, and scored 45 goals. He did not make either team because he plays center in an era where McDavid and MacKinnon exist. That sentence alone explains his absence more clearly than any argument could.
Nick Suzuki posted 101 points, a +37 plus-minus, and won the Frank J. Selke Trophy. He also plays center in Montreal behind a teammate who scored 62 points in his first full NHL season. Scott Wedgewood of Colorado went 31-6 with a .921 save percentage and a 2.02 GAA in 45 games, statistically the most efficient goaltender in the league, but did not have enough games played to enter the conversation in any serious way.
The depth of this season did not make the All-Star selections easy. It made them ruthless.
What This Season Tells Us About Where the NHL Is Headed
The 2025-26 season was remarkable for what it revealed about the current state of the sport at its highest level. Franchises long dismissed as lost causes, Columbus and Buffalo and Anaheim, are no longer rebuilding. They are arriving. The Canadiens, barely two seasons removed from posting one of the worst records in the league, reached the Eastern Conference Final behind a 25-year-old goal-scorer, a unanimous Rookie of the Month, and a teenage goaltender channeling memories of Ken Dryden.
And through it all, the names at the very top remained the same. McDavid still led the league in scoring. Kucherov still won the Hart. Vasilevskiy still anchored the Tampa crease. Makar still ate minutes and produced points and made it look routine. The established elite held their ground while the next tier rose up to meet them.
That tension, between continuity at the top and acceleration from below, is what makes this particular moment in NHL history worth paying attention to. The All-Star Teams are a snapshot. The season they represent was something closer to a statement.