Artificial intelligence may eventually kill us all — or at least steal our jobs — but for now, it’s doing the extremely important work of determining that the Vancouver Canucks have the most attractive players in the National Hockey League.
Full credit goes to The Daily Hive‘s Rob Williams for digging this one up on Wednesday. According to new findings by betting site Tonybet, which ran 1,079 photos of various players through some newfangled artificial intelligence software, the Canucks have the NHL’s best-looking roster — off the ice, at least.
The Canucks just narrowly beat the New York Rangers for the top spot with an average rating of 7.841 (out of 10) per player. The Daily Hive published the list of the top 10 most attractive teams in their report, along with their average ratings in parentheses:
  1. Vancouver Canucks (7.841)
  2. New York Rangers (7.840)
  3. Detroit Red Wings (7.699)
  4. San Jose Sharks (7.685)
  5. Philadelphia Flyers (7.683)
  6. Winnipeg Jets (7.678)
  7. Los Angeles Kings (7.654)
  8. Washington Capitals (7.635)
  9. Nashville Predators (7.626)
  10. Pittsburgh Penguins (7.600)
We aren’t quite sure what individual qualities the A.I. used to measure attractiveness, but we do know which Canucks player graded out the best: Nils Åman, who measured a 9.33 out of 10 in the attractiveness scale. So, there’s that.
Åman, who was drafted by the Colorado Avalanche in the sixth round back in 2020 but signed his first NHL deal with Vancouver in 2022, racked up three goals and seven points in 43 games with the Canucks in the 2023-24 season. The 24-year-old forward also skated in five playoff games with the club this past spring.
The NHL doesn’t seem to have any appetite to shift into conducting beauty pageants instead of hockey games at any point in the near future, although the Canucks evidently have the chops to succeed in both arenas after winning the Pacific Division in 2024.
The Canucks are slated to open their 2024-25 slate of games when they take on the Calgary Flames in their home opener at Rogers Arena on October 9 — that is, as long as we haven’t all been abducted by sentient computers before then.