{"id":454019,"date":"2026-02-11T03:44:27","date_gmt":"2026-02-11T03:44:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/454019\/"},"modified":"2026-02-11T03:44:27","modified_gmt":"2026-02-11T03:44:27","slug":"26-candidates-for-2026-player-of-the-year","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/454019\/","title":{"rendered":"26 candidates for 2026 Player of the Year"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/p>\n

Caiden Pellegrino leads the region in points. (Patrick Donnelly\/NEHJ) <\/p>\n

One of the top storylines in New England boys prep hockey every season is who the best players are.<\/p>\n

Last year, Rivers star Carter Meyer (Winchester, Mass.) won Player of the Year after posting 70 points and leading the Red Wings to the Elite 8 semifinal. Kimball Union’s Jack Sadowski (Arlington, Mass.) won it the year before after posting 87 points and leading the Wildcats to an Elite 8 title. Current Boston College Eagles forward Landan Resendes (Marlboro, Mass.) won it in 2022-23 after notching 54 points and helping Cushing make the Elite 8 championship.<\/p>\n

It’s impossible to pick out the winner now. There is still so much hockey left to be played, and it will become more meaningful by the week.<\/p>\n

Typically, Player of the Year candidates thrive in the final stretch of the season and the playoffs (usually the Elite 8).<\/p>\n

As things stand, entering mid-February, these skaters have the strongest cases. Players can still make their way into consideration with strong finishes.<\/p>\n

I included goalies in this story even though we do a Goalie of the Year.<\/p>\n

Let’s dive in.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Caiden Pellegrino leads the region in points. (Patrick Donnelly\/NEHJ) One of the top storylines in New England boys…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":454020,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[377],"tags":[29156,29889,2060,47341,25566,5,44676,23877,23878,2065,2066,55140,11957,44379,28393,44678,38489],"class_list":{"0":"post-454019","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-hockey","8":"tag-belmont-hill-hockey","9":"tag-berkshire-hockey","10":"tag-boys-prep-hockey","11":"tag-canterbury-hockey","12":"tag-dexter-southfield-hockey","13":"tag-hockey","14":"tag-kent-hockey","15":"tag-kimball-union-hockey","16":"tag-nepsac-boys-hockey","17":"tag-new-england-prep-hockey","18":"tag-nobles-hockey","19":"tag-pomfret-hockey","20":"tag-salisbury-hockey","21":"tag-st-georges-hockey","22":"tag-st-marks-hockey","23":"tag-trinity-pawling-hockey","24":"tag-winchendon-hockey"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/116049941837178047","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/454019","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=454019"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/454019\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/454020"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=454019"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=454019"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=454019"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}