Over the last few seasons, during bubble week, I have focused on the format I know and that is a 25-team salary cap ($95.5 million) keeper pool with 27 players on each roster (20 active and seven in reserve, but all salaries count). As it is the off-season, we allow each team to carry 28 players if one of the players is an entry draft pick from 2024. Teams must get back down to 27 players on the roster the week before the start of the season. Currently, there are 681 players on rosters over the 25 teams.
The point system is based on goals, assists, and plus/minus, which are weighted differently for forwards (four fantasy points (FP) for goals and assists and two FP for plus/minus) and defensemen (five FP for goals and eight for assists and four for plus/minus). Goalies are rewarded for wins, overtime or shootout losses, shutouts and games played. There are no hits, blocks or PIM. Our league is capped at nine defencemen and three goalies, with a minimum of five defence and two goalies.
The pool has an average salary of $3.99 million per forward, and the average for FP was 176 (2.48/game). On defense, the average salary was $4.03 million with 169 FP (2.46/game). In goal, the average salary was $3.14 million with 208 FP (5.38/game).
After four years in a row of scoring going up each year, 2024-25 went down a little with no scoring rule change in ten years.
Last year, the top player at each position was Nikita Kucherov (2nd overall) with 584 FP at forward, Cale Makar (1st overall) with 704 FP at defense and Connor Hellebuyck (6th overall) with 487 FP in goal. There were 8 defenders, 10 forwards and two goalies in the top 20, with the top three overall being Makar, Kucherov and Zach Werenski (560).
This is a great exercise to look at if you’re running your pool and want to check and see if your rules are still holding up after a few years. Goalies are not playing more than 55-60 games, so their importance is dropping but we had two goalies back in the top 20 after none in 2024-25.
The top player on my fantasy team in 2024-25 was Jesper Bratt (404 FP), who was the 13th highest fantasy forward in the pool.
My top defender was John Carlson (352 FP) (14th overall D).
My strength was in goal with Jake Oettinger (374 FP) (3rd overall G) and Filip Gustavsson (362 FP) (4th overall G).
Some of my players under 24 are Anton Lundell (226 FP), Brandt Clarke (241 FP), Simon Edvinsson (228 FP), with Brad Lambert and Axel Sandin-Pellikka who might play some NHL games this year.
I finished ninth out of 25 teams.
With only seven reserves on each team, 20 players count regularly, so 500 players in the pool should be fantasy relevant.
This is a very tough pool to stay under the Salary Cap and be competitive.
Here are some available players in our pool, with some reasons on why they should or should not be picked up.
This list includes both Western and Eastern Conference players.
Calvin Pickard (G) – Edmonton (33 years old) ($1.0 million AAV) (31st overall G)
Pickard played his most NHL games (36) in a season since 2016-17, when he played 50 games with Colorado. He had a career-high 220 FP with a record of 22-10-1 averaging 6.1 FP per game (FP/G).
He’s unlikely to duplicate his 22 wins from 2024-25, but his salary is so reasonable that he should be on a fantasy roster in our pool by the start of the regular season.
Chandler Stephenson (F) – Seattle (31) ($6.25 million AAV) (108th overall F)
Stephenson had 208 FP in his first year with the Kraken after putting up 206 FP (2.7 FP/g) in 2023-24 with Vegas. His career high is 308 FP while with Vegas in 2022-23 while averaging 3.8 FP/g. Since signing with the Kraken, he has gone from a must-add to a bubble player, purely based on his salary rising to $6.25 million AAV.
He hasn’t had less than 196 FP since 2022-23 or had less than 2.7 FP/g. If a team has cap space, he’s probably as good a player as you’re going to get on waivers.
Tristan Jarry (G) – Pittsburgh (30) ($5.425 million AAV) (33rd overall G)
Jarry had a career-high of 378 FP (6.5FP/g) in 2021-22 while with Pittsburgh when he had a record of 34-18-6. His play, as well as the Penguins overall, have gone down since and he has been between 200 and 283 FP (5 to 6 FP/g).
He’s likely to play more than 36 games (200 FP) in 2025-26 but he’s battling for the starting job in Pittsburgh and might get 40-50 if things go better. He could produce 250-300 FP if things go well.
Jarry needs to be the starter and play well to be worth owning in our pool.
Charlie Coyle (F) – Columbus (33) ($4.5 million AAV) (123rd overall F)
After posting 246 FP (3 FP/g) in 2022-23 and following it up with 259 FP (3.2 FP/g) in 2023-24 with Boston, Coyle struggled in 2024-25.
Coyle played 64 games with Boston and put up 15 goals and seven assists and produced just 66 FP (1.02 FP/g) before being traded to Colorado and playing 19 games with two goals and 11 assists which was good for 70 FP (3.68 FP/g).
He has been traded to Columbus for 2025-26 and if the fantasy owner thinks that he can get back above 3 FP/g he’s well worth his $4.5 million salary.
Elvis Merzlikins (G) – Columbus (31) ($5.525 million AAV) (34th overall G)
I’m surprised Merzlikins is on waivers in our league as he played 53 games in 2024-25 with a record of 26-21-5 which was good for 289 FP (5.5 FP/g). He’s been up and down in his career to this point but does have a career high of 319 FP (5.4 FP/g) in 2021-22 with Columbus where he went 27-23-7.
His salary is not overly expensive for a goalie who figures to play 50-55 games in 2025-26 and flirt with 300 FP.
Nikita Zadorov (D) – Boston (30) ($5.15 million AAV) (63rd overall D)
In pools that count hits and/or blocks, Zadorov is a slam-dunk addition to most fantasy rosters. In our pool he’s on the bubble.
2024-25 was his career-best fantasy season for our pool at 224 FP (2.8 FP/g). He’s posted between 120 and 190 FP (1.6 to 2.3 FP/g) in the three seasons prior with Vancouver and Calgary.
He makes a bit more money at $5.15 million AAV and needs to be around that 2.6 FP/g or higher to be worth it to keep. I suspect he’ll be on a roster by October.
Jean-Gabriel Pageau (F) – NY Islanders (32) ($3.5 million AAV) (143rd overall F)
Pageau had his best fantasy output (186 FP and 2.4 FP/g) for our pool since 2019-20 when he posted 197 FP (2.9 FP/g).
His career-high was in 2015-16 with Ottawa where he put up 219 FP (2.7 FP/g) which was his only time above 200 FP.
He’s been fairly consistent and has a reasonable salary, so he should be rostered by October.
Travis Sanheim (D) – Philadelphia (29) ($8.125 million AAV) (68th overall D)
Sanheim has a similar story to Zadorov above in our pool because we don’t use hits or blocks and he makes $8.125 million AAV.
His career-high is 213 FP (2.7 FP/g) from 2021-22 but in 2024-25 he had just 154 FP (1.9 FP/g) and was dropped in our pool.
Sanheim gives an impression of producing more than he actually does, and with a salary near the top end of defenders, he’s priced himself out of our pool for the most part.
Matt Grzelcyk (D) – Pittsburgh (31) ($4.1 million AAV) (70th overall D)
Grzelcyk had the best offensive output of his career in 2024-25, posting 40 points in 82 games with the Penguins. It was good for 194 FP (2.4 FP/g) in our pool.
His career-high for FP was in 2022-23 where he had 328 FP (4.4 FP/g), tallying 26 points and ending up as a plus 46 with Boston. He dipped all the way to 113 FP (1.8 FP/g) in 2023-24 with Boston again.
Grzelcyk might be a good gamble at $4.1 million AAV.
The swing between the two years for Grzelcyk might make us want to consider changing the scoring system in our pool for plus/minus but we’ve had the same scoring system for 22 years, so it’s unlikely to change unless we had a big push from our participants.
Hopefully, this helps a few people who might be considering some of these players in their pools which have salary caps. I believe the cap is one of the most enjoyable features that a pool can have and brings another level of complexity to building a roster.
Thank you very much for reading, and if you have any comments, please leave them below or follow me on Twitter @gampbler15