Top NHL sophomore breakout candidates for 2026-27

Credit: IMAGN IMAGES via Reuters Connect

It often isn’t easy for young players to find their way in the National Hockey League, and even the ones who do find early success often stumble as they attempt to build upon it.

The so-called “sophomore slump” certainly isn’t exclusive to the NHL — just ask Jeff Francoeur, Baker Mayfield, or Michael Carter-Williams — but it’s certainly common. Once the initial wave of excitement wears off, the intense nature of professional hockey requires a significant adjustment period for most players, and some just can’t handle it.

But occasionally, the opposite happens. Each year, a select few second-year players manage to avoid the dreaded slump entirely, instead reaching a completely new level of excellence. And what’s the opposite of a slump? A breakout.

Last season’s breakout sophomores included Lane Hutson, Cutter Gauthier, Logan Stankoven, Jackson Blake, and Josh Doan, all of whom built on their impressive rookie campaigns and now rank among the top young players in the league — and that’s the model the five soon-to-be-sophomores listed below will try to emulate during the 2026-27 season.

Matvei Gridin and Zayne Parekh, Calgary Flames

Right away, we’re going to cheat by including two players from the same team in one listing. Still, it’s difficult to differentiate too much between Gridin and Parekh, given that they were both drafted by the Calgary Flames in the 2024 first round and played in exactly 37 NHL games apiece last season. Both players showed promise in their abbreviated rookie campaigns and will be tasked with finding more consistency as sophomores.

Gridin managed 20 points in his 37 games with the Flames last season, which put him on pace for 44 over a full 82-game schedule, and in a radio interview shortly after the season ended, Flames head coach Ryan Huska revealed that Gridin told him he aims to lead the team in scoring in 2026-27. For reference, Matt Coronato ultimately led the low-scoring 2025-26 Flames with just 45 points, so Gridin’s goal certainly feels achievable, especially if (as expected) he spends significant time on the top line and No. 1 power-play unit.

As for Parekh, he might not have as easy a path to top PP deployment now that Simon Nemec is also in the fold, but he certainly won’t have to worry about going back to the AHL this year now that MacKenzie Weegar and Rasmus Andersson are out of the picture. Parekh played big minutes down the stretch last year and scored some truly electrifying goals, including a highlight-reel tally in the season finale against the Los Angeles Kings in front of a packed Saddledome crowd.

It’s going to be a big year for Calgary’s youth movement, with Sam Honzek, Hunter Brzustewicz, and Tyson Gross also primed to play significant roles for the rebuilding team, and you can expect to see Gridin and Parekh at the forefront.

Gabe Perreault, New York Rangers

After a so-so first five NHL games with the New York Rangers at the tail-end of the 2024-25 season, Perreault really started to show what he’s capable of over the second half of this past year, particularly after the Rangers traded Artemi Panarin to the Kings in February. Perreault amassed 12 goals and 27 points over 49 games with the Rangers in 2025-26, but he really took off in March and April, collecting 19 points across the team’s final 23 games.

Perreault has always been seen as a highly skilled forward with questionable skating, but he certainly didn’t look out of sync with his Rangers teammates during the stretch drive. Operating primarily on the team’s top line with Mika Zibanejad and Alexis Lafrenière, Perreault put together a handful of truly excellent games, including a three-goal performance against the Detroit Red Wings in April that powered the Blueshirts to a 4-1 victory.

Even with Panarin and Vincent Trocheck no longer in the equation, the Rangers still have the pieces to put together a reasonably strong top-six forward group for the 2026-27 season. Perreault should play a big part in that, as will new trade acquisition Pavel Dorofeyev, who could find himself on the receiving end of multiple set-ups from Perreault on the Rangers’ top power-play unit. Even after how poorly the 2025-26 season went for them, it isn’t too difficult to envision Perreault helping to elevate the Rangers back into the playoff conversation.

Igor Chernyshov and Michael Misa, San Jose Sharks

Hey, look, it’s another two-fer — but considering how the San Jose Sharks have done everything they can to corner the market on talented young players, what else would you expect? In fact, considering that Sam Dickinson is coming off of a decent rookie campaign of his own, this could even be a three-fer … but we’ve already stretched our format enough!

Neither Chernyshov nor Misa played the entire 2025-26 season with the Sharks, but both showed plenty of promise in their first NHL stints. Chernyshov, in particular, looked the part of an impactful NHLer almost from his first shift in the league, starting off with points in six of his first seven games and finishing with nine goals and 19 points in 28 contests. Chernyshov’s emergence likely contributed to Sharks GM Mike Grier’s decision to trade William Eklund to the Ottawa Senators after the season, and we here at Daily Faceoff project that Macklin Celebrini will be flanked by Chernyshov and Will Smith to begin the 2026-27 campaign.

Similarly, we expect that Misa will settle in as the Sharks’ No. 2 center after taking gradual steps forward as a teenage rookie in his first post-draft season. Drafted second behind Matthew Schaefer in 2025, Misa followed a similar path as Parekh, his former Saginaw Spirit teammate, in 2025-26; he made the Sharks out of camp and played sparingly during the first half of the season (even going down to the AHL for a spell) before starring with Team Canada at the World Juniors and returning to the NHL thereafter with much more confidence.

Remember, the Sharks still have Ivar Stenberg, Keaton Verhoeff, Ryan Lin, Quentin Musty, Filip Bystedt, and Joshua Ravensbergen in their system — all recent first-rounders who haven’t even played in the NHL yet. Their players will feature on lists like this for a long time.

Danila Yurov, Minnesota Wild

The first player on this list who plays on a team that projects to be competitive, Yurov was drafted and developed as a winger but spent much of the 2025-26 season as Kirill Kaprizov’s center with the Minnesota Wild. As the Wild have continued to sniff around virtually every center on the trade market, Yurov’s name has occasionally come up in rumors and discussions, but for now, it appears he’ll be given an opportunity to play his way into mainstay status in 2026-27.

The word that best describes Yurov’s game is “slick.” He’s got outstanding hands and can certainly keep up with Kaprizov on the rush when he’s at his best. The main issue with Yurov in 2025-26 was his lack of consistency; he routinely went a handful of games without registering a point, including an 11-game dry spell that stretched from late March into early April. Yurov finished his rookie year with just 12 goals and 27 points in 73 games, but when he did score, it was often in spectacular fashion.

Wild GM Bill Guerin has been one of the NHL’s highest-profile executives over the past year, making Kaprizov the league’s highest-paid player (temporarily, at least) before pulling off a blockbuster trade for Quinn Hughes. The next item on his to-do list is extending Hughes, who can become an unrestricted free agent in 2027, but he’s also still searching for a centre. As it stands, the Wild will likely use Yurov, Joel Eriksson Ek, Ryan Hartman, and Michael McCarron down the middle on opening night, but if Yurov wants to remain in the rotation, he’ll need to perform — and if he can’t, he might just follow Marco Rossi out of town.

Ryan Leonard, Washington Capitals

Thankfully, Alex Ovechkin’s tenure with the Washington Capitals is still ongoing, but he won’t be around forever (not unless the NHL develops some form of anti-ageing serum at some point in the next few years). As such, the Capitals have already begun formulating their post-Ovechkin strategy, and you can bet Leonard features very prominently in their plans — especially in the wake of his highly encouraging 20-goal, 45-point rookie season in 2025-26.

Leonard’s first-year production was virtually identical to what Cutter Gauthier managed with the Anaheim Ducks in 2024-25, and the Capitals would undoubtedly love Leonard to double his goal output like Gauthier did in his sophomore year. But even if he doesn’t make that jump right away, Leonard will still be viewed as one of the main building blocks of the next phase of Capitals hockey. He’s a do-it-all power winger with genuine Tkachuk-like traits, and it’s easy to envision a line of Leonard and the two Protas brothers terrorizing the Metropolitan Division for years into the future.

Of all the players on this list, Leonard has already proven the most in the NHL. Even before he arrived in Washington, he had established himself at Boston College as a premier offensive player in all of NCAA Division I men’s hockey from a very young age. He has the pedigree of a No. 8 overall pick, and while it’ll be impossible for anyone to replace the Great 8, Leonard has all the tools to be a true top-line player in D.C. — and he’ll need to be, considering that he’s the only top-10 draft pick they’ve made since 2007.

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