If you missed the Top 20 post, you can check that out here. The plan is for my goaltending post to come out on Monday, with my Top 200 post coming out in the middle of next week so you have it for your drafts next weekend. That said, between all of the individual posts, you should be able to put it together and get close to a Top 200. If you want to get some early goaltending thoughts, you can look at MarmosDad’s thoughts here. And with that, let’s get to the Top 40!
21) Dougie Hamilton – I’ve long been a fan of Dougie, and while he’s far from his peak, I’m still bullish on what he can do. Luke Hughes has been so poor on the power play that I have to imagine Hamilton gets PP1, which is a huge plus with everyone healthy. We know the shot rate is above average in a worst case scenario, and elite if he’s playing his best. Sure, he won’t be great in assists, but he’s so good at everything else that Hamilton fits on pretty much all team builds. Like the rest of the top Devils, I’m buying a bounce back.
22) Shayne Gostisbehere – Last season was a fairy tale for Gostisbehere, putting up 50 points in 55 games on the way to Carolina winning the Cup. He’s a great PPQB, which drives most of his value. He’ll play the fewest minutes of anyone on this list, which is the main drawback. Given the extremely high shooting percentage last season, my expectation is that Ghost Bear falls back towards what he did in 24-25, which was 45 points in 70 games. He has upside from 10+40, so he’s a great #3, but is perfectly fine as your #2.
23) Jackson LaCombe – You can definitely make the case that I’m selling LaCombe short. He’s definitely much higher than this in real life. The problem is that when you’re under two shots per game with no PIM, you’re very dependent on points. LaCombe did put up 58 last season, but even with that, he was only D31 last season playing 82 games. This ranking actually suggests improvement from LaCombe. With Carlson gone, LaCombe should keep PP1 all year, and that’s enough to put him in this range.
24) Shea Theodore – Two seasons ago, Theodore had 57 points in 67 games. Last season, he had 39 points in 70 games. The difference? Almost entirely on the power play. Last season, the Golden Knights played five forwards on the power play for the majority of the season under DeBoer. With a new coach taking over plus the departure of Dorofeyev, I don’t expect that to happen again. We’ll see in training camp, and if I’m wrong, Theodore goes towards the bottom of this list. Right now, I’m expecting a bounce back and a very similar season to LaCombe.
25) Brock Faber – The first guy on this list that definitely isn’t running PP1 for their team, Faber set new career highs across the board. That’s the beauty of playing most of the season with Hughes. You have to be in a position to stomach the lack of PPP, but Faber is a great bet for 50+ points, assuming Hughes is there all season. That makes him a solid #3.
26) Seth Jones – It’s too early to know, but my guess is that Jones is running the Panthers power play. His only competition is Ekblad, who has been awful there for the most part. The role is doing most of the work here, not Jones’ talent. That said, the role is what matters for fantasy. I don’t love that the shot rate fell, but he played at a 25+ PPP pace last season, and now Florida gets their talent back. If Jones is getting 25-30 PPP, it’s hard for him not to get to 50 points. For what it’s worth, I see a pretty big drop from Theodore down to the rest of these guys. We’ve reached the points where these guys have serious question marks.
27) Thomas Harley – Harley is the big swing in the 21-30 range. He looked to be on the path to becoming a top ten defenseman, only to have a dreadful offensive season. The shots dropped significantly, causing him to go from 16 goals to six. As mentioned in the Top 20, I expect Heiskanen to keep PP1, but as we saw two seasons ago, that isn’t a lock. Even in his two big seasons before last, Harley had only one power play goal, so he has a path to get to 15+ goals again even on PP2. Given that he’s only 25 years old, I’m making a bet on the talent.
28) Vince Dunn – It might feel a bit lazy putting Dunn and Montour next to each other (spoiler alert!) given that they’re on the same team, but they’re shockingly similar at this point. From Dunn’s perspective, last season was a big step back offensively, falling to 44 points. He did set career highs on the power play, his shot rate jumped to slightly above average, and he takes plenty of penalties. The additions of Samoskevich and Catton give the Kraken a nice top nine, even if it lacks top end talent. That will help Dunn get his even strength points back up to get him into the 50’s in total points.
29) Brandon Montour – Montour has averaged exactly 0.5 points per game for three consecutive seasons. It’s safe to say that I expect him to stay in the 40-45 range again. Montour is ranked this high because he has an elite shot rate for a defenseman, and the PIM are always good. He’s also decent enough in both hits and blocks. Montour is a clean fit on all teams because of the all-around contributions.
30) Noah Dobson – At this point, Dobson is basically the 90% version of Faber for fantasy. He’s stuck on PP2 because of Hutson, but if Hutson went down, Dobson would probably be a top ten defenseman again. The shot rate trending the wrong way puts Dobson here instead of five spots higher next to Faber. He’s a nice, boring option.
31) Bowen Byram – We’ve reached a tier of home run swings. Chicago gave up the world and then some to acquire Byram from the Sabres. He’s going to get every chance to show he’s a #1 defenseman. That means top PP time on a power play that should be good with Kane returning. The potential downside is Byram being -30 with a horrendous shot rate, so he wouldn’t even be worth owning. The upside is probably around 15 goals and 40 assists with good contributions in everything but shots. That’s a solid #2. I put Byram in the range of being a #3, but that’s splitting the difference between both ends of the spectrum, and the likely scenario is he hits his ceiling, or falls to his floor.
32) Alexander Nikishin – I really struggled with what to do with Nikishin. To start off, he wants to be traded or given a massive contract, which Carolina doesn’t seem inclined to give. Nikishin looked the part in his rookie season, albeit on an elite team and mostly on the third pair. Wherever he is playing, I’m expecting an expanded role. I’ve always been a huge believer in his talent, and he’s good at all of the banger categories. If he’s traded somewhere where he’s getting a big role, this ranking seems like his floor. He’s nowhere close to being a UFA, so if he ends up taking a one year deal with Carolina, he probably ends up right around this spot or a bit lower.
33) Cole Hutson – A huge swing, Hutson put up ten points in 14 games to close last season. The path is very clear for Hutson to be the second best defenseman on Washington, meaning far more minutes than he received last season. His spot on PP2 should have more value now as well, as it might be the most talented second unit in the league. I mostly don’t want to overreact to 14 games, and his shot rate was below average. Hutson could be a guy you don’t even want to roster come November, but I suspect he does enough to be held everywhere all season.
34) Luke Hughes – It’s no secret that I’ve never been a big Luke Hughes believer in comparison to his perceived value. He’s gone slightly backwards in points each season of his career, although the shot rate took a nice jump up last season. Could he take the PP1 spot from Dougie, take a big step forward and put up 60 points? Crazier things have happened. I think it’s more likely he takes a small step forward again, putting him in the 45-50 point range. Now that the shots are better, that should be an easy hold. It must be noted that the hits are non-existent, which does hurt his value quite a bit in hits leagues.
35) Philip Broberg – At first glance, you see Broberg’s 34 points in 81 games with a poor shot rate and you have to be wondering why I have him ranked at all. It was easy to miss it because of how irrelevant the Blues were last season, but from February on, Broberg had four goals and 14 assists in 27 games. That’s a 56 point pace over 84 games. Broberg has been fantastic in real life, and he pretty much needs to run their power play out of necessity. This could go south quickly because of how poor the shot rate is, but a 50 point defenseman has to be held pretty much everywhere. As an aside, I just realized that throughout these rankings, I keep talking about 82 game paces. I haven’t adjusted to the league going to 84 games. It doesn’t really change anything, but it’s worth noting.
36) Rasmus Andersson – Andersson was low key dreadful for Vegas once they acquired him, but he received a massive extension nonetheless. I’d argue he’s the fourth option for PP1 now behind Theodore, going five forwards, and Hanifin, which caps his ceiling quite a bit. If your league doesn’t include block shots, I have a hard time getting excited for Andersson. The penalty minutes heavily swing from season to season, and his shot rate is right around two per game annually. He’s a boring, bottom end hold.
37) Victor Hedman – I don’t really know what to do with Hedman. He was dreadful last season, but he obviously had plenty of issues off the ice to deal with. Now, he’s 35 years old (going to be 36 early in the season), and he’s very likely to be on the third pair behind Moser-Carlson and McDonagh-Cernak. I’d also be surprised if he ever gets PP1 back, barring an injury to Carlson. I assume his name value will cause him to go higher than this, which is perfectly fine for me. Maybe we randomly get a huge bounce back from the future Hall of Famer, but it feels more likely that he ends up a bottom end hold.
38) Thomas Chabot – Chabot is essentially Dobson with a lower shot rate and more injury risk. The shot rate cratering last season was tough to see, as it went from a plus to a negative. I still think there’s enough offensive talent here for Chabot to play at a 50 point pace despite the lack of PP1 time. At this point, we pretty much know what Chabot is.
39) Sam Malinski – Malinski took advantage of his first season with a major role on Colorado, putting up 40 points despite only one on the power play. The Avs clearly believe, as he was rewarded with a nice contract. It is worth noting that when Makar missed games last season, Malinski did get PP1 time instead of Burns or Toews. Regardless, I suspect Malinski stumbles into enough points again to be worth ranking here, especially when you consider a likely elite plus-minus. A decent shot rate doesn’t hurt either. All of this said, it’s also easy to envision Malinski not being rosterable in 12’ers either.
40) Darnell Nurse – Nurse moves to San Jose where he will also have a bigger role than he should. For the non-points categories, we know what we’re getting from Nurse. It’s going to be a ton of PIM, hits and blocks, with good shots for a defenseman. Nurse’s value will depend on whether he’s around 30 points, or around 45. Could he actually get some power play time for the Sharks? It’s really hard to say what they’re going to do. It could be Cagnoni on PP1 and Orlov on PP2. Cagnoni might not be playable, so Nurse or Trouba could get power play time. Obviously, that would be a huge boon for Nurse’s value. Given the contributions in all of the non-points categories, I ended up slotting Nurse here because he’s such an easy fit on every team.
Steady guys who won’t give many points but help elsewhere: Weegar, Hanifin, Toews, Burns, Ekblad, Pionk, Samuelsson, Ekholm
Upside plays if you want to gamble: Buium, Parekh, Edvinsson, Mateychuk, Power, Cagnoni (need to see if PP1 in camp)
Others in consideration: Durzi, Hronek, Letang, Walman, Walker, OEL
