There is always a lot of debate as to who is the most popular player in the NHL. Ask some and they will say Connor McDavid, others will say Auston Matthews or Igor Shesterkin. Still other may mention Sidney Crosby, Steven Stamkos or Alex Ovechkin. In any given season when you ask hockey fans who is the most popular player you may get any one of 20 different players mentioned.
We decided to look at which players were the most popular based on Google Search activity. (Full disclosure I’ve worked in Search and Digital Marketing for over twenty years). So without getting too technical, we thought we would simplify the process and see which NHL players were searched for the most in Google Search. A couple of items worth mentioning:
- we factored in all 1,122 NHL players who played at least one game in the NHL during the 2021/22 regular season.
- we looked at Canadian search activity
- we looked at search activity over the past 18 months
- we averaged the search activity based on monthly searches
- we looked at trending search activity
- data was based on actual data from Google
Top 100 Most Searched NHL Players – 2022 Edition
It’s worth mentioning that just because people searched for a player it does not necessarily indicate popularity of the player, however there is a correlation. Here are the top 100 NHLers who generated the most search activity over the past year or so.
Some observations about the list:
- Fans of the Edmonton Oilers are big Googlers as lots of Oilers players are represented (13% of the top 100 searched-for players).
- As Stanley Cup Champions, there were a number of Colorado Avalanche players represented
- The Tampa Bay Lightning as a Stanley Cup Finalist also saw strong representation within the top 100
| Player | Avg Monthly Searches |
| Connor McDavid | 750,000 |
| Auston Matthews | 600,000 |
| Sidney Crosby | 500,000 |
| Evander Kane | 500,000 |
| Cale Makar | 500,000 |
| Carey Price | 470,000 |
| Nathan Mackinnon | 100,000 |
| Nazem Kadri | 80,000 |
| Johnny Gaudreau | 75,000 |
| Victor Hedman | 60,000 |
| Roman Josi | 60,000 |
| Igor Shesterkin | 55,000 |
| Trevor Zegras | 54,000 |
| Darcy Kuemper | 51,000 |
| Gabriel Landeskog | 50,000 |
| Dylan Strome | 50,000 |
| Mason McTavish | 50,000 |
| Adam Fox | 50,000 |
| Brayden Point | 50,000 |
| Andrei Vasilevskiy | 50,000 |
| Leon Draisaitl | 50,000 |
| Alex Ovechkin | 50,000 |
| Alex Newhook | 50,000 |
| Duncan Keith | 50,000 |
| Mika Zibanejad | 50,000 |
| JT Miller | 50,000 |
| Jake Oettinger | 50,000 |
| Moritz Seider | 50,000 |
| Artemi Panarin | 50,000 |
| Devon Toews | 50,000 |
| Mike Smith | 50,000 |
| Tyson Barrie | 50,000 |
| Mikko Koskinen | 50,000 |
| Brandon Hagel | 50,000 |
| Kailer Yamamoto | 50,000 |
| Jesse Puljujarvi | 50,000 |
| James Neal | 50,000 |
| Ryan Reaves | 50,000 |
| Pat Maroon | 50,000 |
| Corey Perry | 50,000 |
| Ethan Bear | 50,000 |
| Bowen Byram | 50,000 |
| Kevin Fiala | 50,000 |
| Zack Kassian | 50,000 |
| Alexis Lafrenière | 50,000 |
| Darnell Nurse | 50,000 |
| Jack Johnson | 50,000 |
| Patrick Brown | 50,000 |
| Artturi Lehkonen | 50,000 |
| Jonathan Toews | 50,000 |
| Troy Terry | 50,000 |
| Jack Hughes | 50,000 |
| Justin Barron | 50,000 |
| Rem Pitlick | 50,000 |
| Brad Marchand | 50,000 |
| Nikita Kucherov | 50,000 |
| Patrick Kane | 50,000 |
| Zach Hyman | 50,000 |
| Matthew Tkachuk | 50,000 |
| Steven Stamkos | 50,000 |
| Kevin Hayes | 50,000 |
| Ryan Nugent-Hopkins | 50,000 |
| Matt Murray | 50,000 |
| Tony DeAngelo | 50,000 |
| Jack Campbell | 50,000 |
| Lucas Raymond | 50,000 |
| Patrice Bergeron | 50,000 |
| Tyler Bertuzzi | 50,000 |
| Alex Galchenyuk | 50,000 |
| John Tavares | 50,000 |
| Brandon Tanev | 50,000 |
| Jake Debrusk | 50,000 |
| Nick Ritchie | 50,000 |
| Cody Ceci | 50,000 |
| Joe Thornton | 50,000 |
| Petr Mrazek | 50,000 |
| Jakob Chychrun | 50,000 |
| PK Subban | 50,000 |
| Blake Coleman | 50,000 |
| Pierre-Luc Dubois | 50,000 |
| Claude Giroux | 50,000 |
| Brady Tkachuk | 50,000 |
| Andrew Copp | 50,000 |
| Nolan Patrick | 50,000 |
| Zdeno Chara | 50,000 |
| Trevor Moore | 50,000 |
| Jason Spezza | 50,000 |
| Quinton Byfield | 50,000 |
| Oliver Ekman-Larsson | 50,000 |
| Andrew Mangiapane | 50,000 |
| Taylor Hall | 50,000 |
| Brendan Lemieux | 50,000 |
| Jared McCann | 50,000 |
| Mathieu Perreault | 50,000 |
| Phil Kessel | 50,000 |
| Travis Hamonic | 50,000 |
| Chris Wideman | 50,000 |
| Jeff Petry | 50,000 |
| Marc Andre Fleury | 50,000 |
| Yanni Gourde | 50,000 |
So there you have it, Connor McDavid of the Edmonton Oilers is the most searched for NHL player on Google. An interesting list for sure. Some of the players we thought would be higher on the list included:
- Anze Kopitar (ranked #220)
- Joe Pavelski (ranked #419)
- Matt Dumba (ranked #527)
- Miro Heiskanen (ranked #554)
- Tomas Hertl (ranked #698)
- Ville Husso (ranked #834)
