For the third consecutive season, Mikko Rantanen has found himself moving on up in NHL Network’s annual ranking of the top 20 wingers in the league. This time, they’ve moved him past someone they had ranked number one just last summer.

In these new rankings, Rantanen finds himself at number three on the list, sitting just behind Nikita Kucherov and Matthew Tkachuk. That means that the network has ranked him higher than David Pastrnak, who they had in the top position just last summer. Rantanen is coming off his second straight 100 point season, as he fell just one point short of matching the 105 points he put up during his career-best 2022-23 campaign. It’s a little surprising to see him ranked ahead of Pastrnak, though.

The Boston winger just put up 47 goals and 110 points without a real #1 center to play with. I’m a little confused as to how he fell down to #4 on the list, but NHL Network didn’t really explain that in their rankings. Would I take Rantanen over Pastrnak? They’re real close, but I’d probably lean towards the Bruins winger. They’re both two of the best at their position, though.

While Rantanen put up 104 points last year, he didn’t really match the level of play he found the year before. During the 2022-23 campaign, you could argue he was the MVP of the Avalanche, as he really held the team together when guys like Nathan MacKinnon and Cale Makar were injured. That carried over to the postseason, as he was the only player that could consistently score against the Seattle Kraken. This past season, MacKinnon drove the bus and really carried the offense. Rantanen still picked up a lot of points, but he wasn’t as dominant as he was the year prior.

Rantanen’s rank has gone up each of the last three seasons. He started at sixth, moved up to fourth last summer, and is now up to number three.

Here’s what the NHL Network had to say about the Avalanche winger…

Rantanen had 42 goals and 104 points in 80 games last season, his fourth-straight season with at least 30 goals and third straight with at least 92 points. The 27-year-old played averaging an NHL-career high 22:54 of ice time. He had 40 power-play points and nine game-winning goals and was among the Avalanche’s top scorers in the playoffs with 14 points (four goals, 10 assists) in 11 games.

The Avalanche are probably looking at that Pastrnak contract with an $11.25 million cap hit as one they’d love to get Rantanen locked up to, if possible.

No other Avalanche winger made the list, which isn’t a huge surprise. We know Nathan MacKinnon will likely rank really high when it comes time to make a list of the top centers in the game, and the same with Cale Makar on defense.