ICEHL: The “Hockey News – Player of the 2025/26 Season” has been announced!

Voting, discussing and voting took place for six months – now the decision has been made: Lukas Haudum (Graz99ers) is the player of the 2025/26 season!

As in previous years, the overall result was made up of fan voting and editorial ratings. While the editorial team awarded their points based on performance, consistency and influence on the team, the fans ensured a clear weighting with impressive participation and ultimately also gave decisive support to winner Lukas Haudum.

Fan voting with a clear trend

With a total of 119,818 votes, the fan voting clearly dominated: Lukas Haudum received the most votes by a wide margin, laying the foundation for his overall victory. Behind him is defender Nick Bailen, another player from the Graz99ers.

The overall result at a glance

The combination of fan and editorial points results in the following final ranking:

PLACE NAME TEAM FANP. RED.P. IN TOTAL
1 Luke Haudum Graz99ers 12 9 21
2 Nick Bailen Graz99ers 7 12 19
3 Mathias From KAC 5 10 15
4 David Kickert Red Bull Salzburg 10 5 15
5 Michael Raffl Red Bull Salzburg 11 4 15
6 Maxime Lagace Graz99ers 8 6 14
7 Nicolai Meyer Olimpija Ljubljana 2 11 13
8 TJ Brennan Olimpija Ljubljana 3 8 11
9 Brad McClure HC Bolzano 4 7 11
10 Rasmus Reijola Fehervar AV19 9 2 11
11 Tyler Coulter Ferencvaros Budapest 6 1 7
12 Brady Shaw Ferencvaros Budapest 1 3 4

Exciting race for the top places

It was particularly close behind the winner and second-placed Nick Bailen: several players – including KAC striker Mathias From and the two Salzburg cracks David Kickert and Michael Raffl – ended up with the same points and were in a neck-and-neck race for the last place on the podium. The decisive factor here was the respective placements in the editorial voting.

Deserved winner

With his strong season performance and the enormous support of the fans, Lukas Haudum deservedly secures the title and succeeds last year’s winner, Ryan Murphy.

We warmly congratulate you on the title “Player of the 2025/26” season!

Image: VSV/STEFAN

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