League Winners 2024-25: The 10 fantasy hockey picks that will shape your season

Montreal Canadiens left winger Juraj Slafkovsky

Credit: Mar 21, 2024; Vancouver, British Columbia, CAN; Montreal Canadiens forward Juraj Slafkovsky (20) skates during warm up prior to a game against the Vancouver Canucks at Rogers Arena. Mandatory Credit: Bob Frid-USA TODAY Sports

In fantasy hockey, Connor McDavid is not a league winner.

Neither is Nathan MacKinnon, Auston Matthews, Nikita Kucherov, Connor Hellebuyck or Quinn Hughes.

Superstar players carry superstar draft costs in fantasy and, we hope, produce at rates commensurate with our considerable expectations.

So what are league winners, then?

League winners are players who vastly outproduce their perceived draft-day values and massively upgrade your roster, giving you a significant advantage over the field in your hockey pool.

Sam Reinhart was a league-winner last season. No one saw 57 goals coming. Same goes for William Nylander’s 98-point explosion. Many of us expected an Evan Bouchard breakout, but few drafted him at the cost of a point-per-game defenseman, so he was absolutely a league winner. So were Filip Forsberg, who stayed healthy and delivered a career-best 48-46-94 line, and his linemate Gustav Nyquist, an out-of-nowhere 75-point scorer. How about backup goalie turned NHL shutout leader Charlie Lindgren? He was plucked out of the free agent pool even in deep leagues. League winner.

Which players could be 2024-25’s league winners, delivering fantasy results exceeding their perceived values? My top 10 includes everything from predicted contract-year booms to veterans coming off down years to slept-on rookies and sophomores. For newbie fantasy players: ADP refers to average draft position in current Yahoo leagues.

Jason Robertson, LW, Dallas Stars (ADP: 29.4)

Currently rated as: A solid, boring second- or third-round pick

Could be: The superstar of two years ago

Robertson is 24 years old, plays on one of the best teams in the NHL and is just one season removed from delivering first-round value with a 109-point season. Yet his ADP suggests people think the 80-point guy of last season is the real Robertson. I’m not convinced. He’s smack in his prime. While it’s true that his underlying offensive metrics suggested his regression was not luck-based, there’s a good chance he and Roope Hintz play much of this season with rising star sniper Wyatt Johnston. They should form one of the NHL’s most dominant lines, and even if Robertson doesn’t score 109 points again, I expect him to get 90 at minimum.

Mitch Marner, RW, Toronto Maple Leafs (ADP: 31.4)

Currently rated as: A maligned veteran asset being punished for his real-life playoff performance

Could be: A top-15 fantasy asset with a chip on his shoulder in a contract year

A defining NHL storyline this offseason was whether the Leafs would trade Marner, who, despite a Hall-of-Fame-grade trajectory eight seasons into his career, has repeatedly disappeared the deeper Toronto gets into a playoff series. We can use all that to our advantage. He hasn’t been traded, he enters this season without a contract beyond July 1, 2025, and there appears to be a stink on him. That’s what the ADP tells us. It’s the only way to explain a two-time first-team all-star who is seventh in points over the past five seasons going outside the top 30 in drafts. Whether you’re a Marner fan or not, he has scored at a 93-point pace or better in six consecutive seasons. We saw what Reinhart and Nylander did in their contract years. Marner is the same age they were a year ago and will be just as motivated. If you get a potential 100-point scorer in the third round of your draft, your chances of winning your league skyrocket.

Connor Bedard, Chicago Blackhawks (ADP: 48.3)

Currently rated as: A young gun expected to duplicate, not improve upon, his rookie year

Could be: A top-10 fantasy player

“Really went out on a limb calling Bedard a league winner, Larkin.” Hey, don’t blame me for this beat-you-over-the-head obvious choice. Blame drafters, who are inexplicably letting the phenom slip almost outside the top 50. He averaged the third-most points of any 18-year-old player this century, the only two who topped him were Sidney Crosby and Connor McDavid, and Bedard’s generational-talent pedigree indicates he will bust out for full-fledged superstardom in short order. Not only will natural progression increase his production, but the Blackhawks significantly strengthened his supporting cast this summer. So what gives? Are we getting a broken jaw discount after he missed 14 games as a rookie? I see 40-45-85 as the floor, and the ceiling would put him into first-round territory.

Tim Stutzle, Ottawa Senators (ADP: 62.1)

Currently rated as: A solid early-to-mid-round pick who should flirt with point-per-game production

Could be: A bona fide star and top-25 fantasy asset

Whoa. Why has everyone leapt off the Stutzle train so quickly? A year ago, he was a 21-year-old coming off a 90-point season and offering a triple-digit hit total for banger leagues. It was Stutzle to the moon. This feels like another example of drafters projecting real-life disappointment over a team’s performance onto a player in fantasy. Yes, the Senators have been maddening in their inability to take seemingly promising young teams to the playoffs over the past several seasons. But even a step back for Stutzle included 70 points in 75 games. He also shot an extremely unlucky 9.4 percent. His play-driving metrics at 5-on-5 didn’t look much worse than the previous season’s. Bet on him getting back to his superstar path. He’s a criminal bargain if he’s going outside the top 60 in standard redraft leagues right now.

Juraj Slafkovsky, LW, Montreal Canadiens (ADP: 113.4)

Currently rated as: A breakout pick coming off a strong second half

Could be: The next banger league behemoth

No one is sleeping on the big man at this point, to be clear. The 2022 Draft’s No. 1 overall pick finished 2023-24 with 19 points in 19 games and is poised to improve on his 50-point breakout with a second breakout if he sticks all year on Montreal’s top line with Nick Suzuki and Cole Caufield. But we may still be underestimating how much Slafkovsky can help in banger leagues specifically. If we pro-rate his second half numbers from last season, we get 32 goals, 70 points, 194 shots and 152 hits. He could be maturing into Brady Tkachuk Lite before our eyes. Combo-meal players win you fantasy championships.

Jeff Skinner, LW, Edmonton Oilers (ADP: 143.2)

Currently rated as: Still a Buffalo Sabre, apparently?

Could be: The cheapest 40 goals in your draft

Set aside Buffalo’s headscratching decision to buy out Skinner; in his past three seasons there, despite crossing the age-30 threshold, he still averaged 32 goals per 82 games. Now we’re dropping him into Edmonton, where he’s expected to play with Leon Draisaitl. If coach Kris Knoblauch wants to experiment during the season, we’ll surely see Skinner get some time with McDavid, too. And there’s the possibility of Skinner earning some power-play work if Knoblauch feels the need to tweak any looks on the legendary top unit. Having landed in the league’s most fertile fantasy ecosystem, Skinner feels like a lock for 30 goals, but scoring 40 doesn’t feel remotely unattainable. I expected major helium on draft boards and assumed I’d miss out on Skinner once the hype got out of hand. But if he holds at pick 143 on average… league winner.

Justus Annunen, G, Colorado Avalanche (ADP:163.2)

Currently rated as: A backup goalie with upside on a Stanley Cup contender

Could be: A starting goalie on a Stanley Cup contender by season’s end

Annunen differs from the other picks on my board in that I don’t believe he’s undervalued. An ADP of 163.2 puts him in the 14^th round of 12-team drafts, so it seems drafters are aware he posted a .928 save percentage in 14 appearances last season. But “solid backup and streamer” feels like the floor to me. Starter Alexandar Georgiev was bad in the 2023 playoffs, bad in the 2023-24 regular season and bad in the 2024 playoffs. In seven NHL seasons, he carries a pedestrian .908 career SV% and has been an elite fantasy commodity in just one of those campaigns. Georgiev enters the final season of his contract and will have to play his way into an extension if he wants one. If he struggles again, the Avs will likely give Annunen a longer look. No matter what, he’s in for a bigger workload than last year’s, as Colorado wants to avoid burning Georgiev out after he led all goalies in minutes played – and goals allowed – last season.

Dylan Guenther, RW, Utah Hockey Club (ADP: 183.5)

Currently rated as: A mid-to-late-round sleeper in standard leagues

Could be: This year’s Wyatt Johnston, a.k.a. 30 goals at a bargain price

When a pedigreed player scores everywhere he goes, he attracts my attention in a hurry. Guenther, the 2021 Draft’s ninth-overall pick, lit up the WHL in his last couple years there, earned a short look in the NHL in 2022-23 and averaged just under a point per game in the AHL before permanently sticking in The Show last season. He buried 18 goals in 45 games and showed real chemistry with budding star center Logan Cooley on the second line. Guenther is just 21, he already has 24 goals in his first 78 NHL games, and he scored at a 33-goal pace last season. A big breakout feels like a tap-in at this point.

Marco Rossi C, Minnesota Wild (ADP: Undrafted)

Currently rated as: A prospect flier who may be traded in real life

Could be: A breakout scorer as Kirill Kaprizov’s full-time center

Rossi was supposed to be the No. 1 center Minnesota had lacked for years. He carried massive promise when the Wild drafted him ninth overall in 2020. His development stalled after some scary COVID-related health issues, but he got his career on track, reached the NHL by 2022-23 and became an impact player last season. He delivered 21 goals and showed some legitimate defensive chops up the middle to boot. He saw plenty of time with Kaprizov, and the Wild had a plus-six goal differential with the two of them together at 5-on-5. Should the arrow thus be pointing way up? Drafters so far have ignored Rossi in shallow and medium leagues. It could be because some trade talk surfaced in the summer based on the idea the Wild had higher-upside options for their top six in the prospect pipeline. But the likes of Riley Heidt aren’t locks to make the team by any means. Rossi is, he has already acquitted himself at the No. 1 center position, and he has the talent to level up further. If Minnesota was going to trade him this season, it probably would’ve happened by now. He’s a potential 60-point scorer, and the ADP data suggests he’s free in drafts right now.

Brandt Clarke, D, Los Angeles Kings (ADP: Undrafted)

Currently rated as: A late-round flier or in-season pickup

Could be: This year’s Thomas Harley

Clarke’s ceiling is enormous. He averaged roughly two points per game in his last major junior season and seamlessly became a point-per-game defenseman at the AHL level last year. With Matt Roy leaving in free agency, the Kings have an opening in their top four on defense. Why can’t Clarke be the one to seize the opportunity? He has little left to prove in the minors, and the Kings would love it if someone in addition to Drew Doughty brought offense from the back end. Clarke is his successor as the team’s top offensive weapon from the point. Once things click, he’s going to be a hot fantasy commodity for years to come and, based on opportunity, it wouldn’t be a surprise if he becomes a meaningful offensive contributor this season. Think double-digit goals, 45 points and PP2 work at worst. Clarke could move the needle for your team as an endgame selection.

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