It’s possible that American hockey markets are sometimes undersold. If you look purely at the jersey sales, it’s easy to see why the NHL is so adamant about growing the game in the US.
Just think, Connor McDavid and Auston Matthews have absolutely dominanted headlines this season, yet still, neither of them are in the top 3 for jersey sales this season. It makes sense that Matthews wouldn’t get that much outside of Toronto, but for the NHL’s points leader to not even rank in the top 5 is pretty shocking.
Check out the full list here.
1.Sidney Crosby
2.Patrick Kane
3.Jonathan Toews
4.Auston Matthews
5.Henrik Lundqvist
6.Connor McDavid
7.Alex Ovechkin
8.Vladimir Tarasenko
9.Claude Giroux
10.Ryan McDonagh
11.Patrice Bergeron
12.Shayne Gostisbehere
13.Zach Parise
14.Carey Price
15.Evgeni Malkin
16.John Tavares
17.Dylan Larkin
18.Steven Stamkos
19.Kris Letang
20.Henrik Zetterberg
Chicago has two players that sold more jerseys than Auston Matthews and Connor McDavid by themselves! The only other Canadian team to have a player rank among the top 20 was the Canadiens with Carey Price.
The NHL released a similar list in February and the biggest change looks to be the massive drop off for Rick Nash, who only put up 38 points this year in an injury-plagued season.
