Following up on last week’s first mock draft that I completed on Yahoo, I have had a chance to run through a few more on Yahoo and Fantrax, and I have some thoughts on drafting and the current player layout for the year that I would like to share.
At the top of the draft this year, it really feels to me like there’s a top tier of five players, including Connor McDavid, Leon Draisaitl, Nathan MacKinnon, Nikita Kucherov, and Cale Makar (loosely in that order). In bangers leagues, Brady Tkachuk jumps up into that top tier as well. After them, there’s another three players who could be in that top-tier, but come with a little more risk, namely Auston Matthews, Kirill Kaprizov, and David Pastrnak.
However, after that the options for a top-10 or top-15 pick feel rather uninspiring. Do you take another defenseman off the board, with one of Quinn Hughes, Rasmus Dahlin, or Zach Werenski? Their teams leave a lot to be desired though, and you’re leaving either points or peripherals on the board if you take one of them. Do you take a forward for a more well-rounded selection? There’s lots of options, but no sure things. Mikko Rantanen, Jack Eichel, Jack Hughes, Mitch Marner, Kyle Connor… perhaps even Sidney Crosby if you think there’s another superstar season in there.
There’s always the option to grab a goalie this early, and while I haven’t taken one in the top-10 since Henrik Lundqvist back about a decade ago, I do understand the appeal in trying to solidify a somewhat lopsided position. Even in the top players though, I find there’s more variability from year to year. As the saying goes, “you can’t win the season with your first few picks, but you can lose it”, and I think about that a lot when it comes to picking goalies. I would rather keep myself with the pack early on, and then make some smarter goalie picks in the mid-rounds once the tiers are nearly empty. It often means I don’t end up with a goalie until pick-80 at the absolute earliest.
Looking back at the skaters, and into the top-10, seeing Cale Makar, Kirill Kaprizov, and Jack Eichel ranked in the top-10 on Fantrax (and in the top-15 on Yahoo) reminds me how lucky I got in last year’s draft for one of my leagues, coming out with all three. We’ll see if we can find a few players from next year’s top-10 list outside the top-15 or top-25 this year.
My best guesses for those that could make the jump into the top-10 are Mitch Marner, Tage Thompson, and Connor Bedard, plus Matthew Tkachuk who should come into next season healthy, but he’s currently ranked at 19th on Yahoo and 36th on Fantrax. He’s due back around the Olympic break though, so if it’s a one-year league, then I have a very tough time spending that much on a player who will miss half the season, and then come back and possibly be a step behind his usual self. Maybe if he drops past pick 50 then I would begin to consider him.
To continue on with that there are quite a few wingers in that next range that feel like they could be top-15 players, but there’s no guarantee that they don’t finish closer to 60th. Between Jason Robertson, William Nylander, Sam Reinhart, Jake Guentzel, Filip Forsberg, Martin Necas, and more, there are just too many similar options. That’s not even including the centres around that tier, including Tim Stutzle, Robert Thomas, Sebastian Aho, Brayden Point, J.T. Miller, Elias Pettersson and more.
The best I can say about that tier, is to know your league categories, and to not outsmart yourself. Don’t get too cocky and think that Timo Meier is a good idea over most of these guys like I did last year. Make the safe and smart pick here, and save the big swings for later.
With that in mind, that’s why goalies slip down my list, though I would still take Jake Oettinger or Andrei Vasilevskiy if they fell into my lap at pick-40. Same idea with Evan Bouchard or Adam Fox at 50th, but I’m not reaching into the top-20 for any of them.
I’ll pick up with some thoughts on the latter half of the draft in next week’s Rambles.
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🔥CBA Transition Dates – PuckPedia Breaking NewsEffective now (25-26 Season):-LTIR Changes-Playoff Cap-No Deferred Comp-No Paper Loans-Double Retention RestrictionCheck out this full breakdown on when various CBA changes go into effecthttps://puckpedia.com/news/CBA-Transition
— PuckPedia (@puckpedia.com) 2025-09-02T18:59:25.313Z
We received some more clarity on the rule changes for the upcoming season, including LTIR rules, salary retention, the removal of paper loans, and more.
The big thing this will likely affect for fantasy is that players like Jackson Blake last year, who was sent back and forth to the minors a few dozen times, is not going to see that kind of treatment again. It will mean there will be less NA status stashes to take advantage of in Yahoo, and for those of us in dynasty leagues, less worry that a paper move is going to be a longer-term demotion.
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In a multi cat league H2H league, my winger keepers are down to Timo Meier, Andrei Svechnikov, Nikolaj Ehlers, Brian Rust and Alexis Laffeniere. Need to pick 3 from the 5.Seperate league with only 1 keeper C per team, also multi cat: Mark Scheifele or the oft injured Joel Eriksson Ek. Thanks Alex
— Slava Ukraini 🇺🇦 (@lankyfrank.bsky.social) 2025-09-02T22:29:03.816Z
Two for one, nice. I did follow up for categories and the rest of any league info was fairly irrelevant when you’re comparing apples to apples. The categories are: G, A, +/-, PPP, SOG, FOW, HIT and BLK for the first question, and the same for question two plus PIM added on top.
Let’s go with the first question first, and right away I’m cutting out Alexis Lafreniere, as a 50-point player while the others are all well above that and have much better power play exposure.
The other four are much closer, with Bryan Rust the oldest, Timo Meier and Andrei Svechnikov previous no-brainer picks who have dissapointed of late, and Nikolaj Ehlers the least multi-cat proficient in addition to being on a new team. Looking at the coverage they all bring, I think that the scoring upside and peripheral dominance of Meier and Svechnikov make them keepers, as even their floor isn’t very far off of where the others would be.
That leaves us to pick between the consistency of Rust, and the higher upside of Ehlers. I’ll say that’s a bit more of a personal preference. If it was my decision to make, I would toss back Rust and his sagging plus-minus and roll the dice that Carolina won’t neuter Ehlers’ scoring upside. Rust does provide some better peripherals and comes out ahead in more categories compared to the other wingers, but he’s the oldest, relies most on his centre for production, and has the most glaring weak stat of the group with his plus-minus.
It’s tough, but to me Rust is the cut. If you have a feeling that you can’t cut him though, Ehlers is next on the chopping block.
For the second question, there’s another peripherals-versus-scoring debate, though this is a much more drastic example.
While Joel Eriksson Ek could even out-produce Mark Scheifele on the aggregate if healthy, the odds are that Scheifele is the better producer across the board by the end of the year.
Not only would he be the safer pick because of the band-aid-boy factor, but he would likely have more trade value and be more difficult to re-draft.
I do very much like Eriksson Ek, and I would have him as a player I would like to re-draft in this setup but keeping him would likely set the keeper group a little too far back on points, with the peripherals being easier to find later into the draft. If healthy though, EEk could be drafted outside of the top-50, or even past 75, but could also easily put up a top-25 fantasy season.
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That’s all from me this week. Hope everyone enjoys the beginning of football season and has a safe first week of back-to-school. We’re almost back to real hockey as well. You can almost taste it.
See you next Wednesday, and if you have any fantasy hockey questions or comments you can find me on BlueSky @alexdmaclean.