Top 30 Fantasy Hockey Forwards Pre-Free Agency
Andrew Dewhirst
Written on September 23, 2020
These rankings are based on Yahoo’s standard scoring for points leagues. For transparency’s sake, this is the scoring.
- Goal – 6 points
- Assist – 4 points
- Plus-minus – 2 points
- Power Play Points – 2 points
- Shots on Goal – 0.9 points
- Blocked Shots – 1 point
There are a few interesting things about these rankings.
- There are seven players who are over 30 on this list. Fantasy players tend to be a bit agist, but there is reason to believe in ageing stars based on how these rankings played out.
- Winnipeg was an elite Fantasy squad last year. The Jets had four top 30 forwards. That is rare, and likely not sustainable.
- Elite fantasy players play top-line minutes. There were two players in the top 30 who played less than 18 minutes per game on average. Andrei Svechnikov and Mike Hoffman. Svechnikov will likely move closer to that 18 minutes per night range, and I would expect Hoffman to move further away.
- Top tier fantasy players don’t hit free agency often. When you look up and down this list, almost every player has a long term deal. Only two of these players were free agents in the last two years. Panarin last year, and Hoffman this year. Every other player was either drafted by their team or acquired in a trade.
- Know your league format. Wingers are generally thought to be scarce, but if you’re playing in a league that doesn’t distinguish between right and left-wing, then they really aren’t. Wingers make up half of this list. If your league distinguishes between right and left, this is how the forward groups break down(Position groupings are based on hockeyreference.com).
Centre – 15
Left-Wing – 7
Right-Wing – 8
- Nathan MacKinnon
- David Pastrnak
- Auston Matthews
- Leon Draisaitl
- Connor McDavid
- Nikita Kucherov
- Artemi Panarin
- Patrick Kane
- Max Pacioretty
- Brad Marchand
- Jack Eichel
- Mika Zibanejad
- Alex Ovechkin
- Kyle Connor
- Patrice Bergeron
- J.T. Miller
- Sebastian Aho
- Mark Schiefele
- Patrick Laine
- Jonathan Huberdeau
- Elias Pettersson
- Steven Stamkos
- Evgeni Malkin
- Blake Wheeler
- Mark Stone
- Teuvo Teravainen
- Braydon Point
- Andrei Svechnikov
- Mike Hoffman
- Sean Couturier
If you have questions or observations about fantasy hockey you can leave a comment or find me on Twitter @andrewkdewhirst.
You can find my NHL DFS work over at fantasyalarm.com @fantasyAlarm
You can find my MLB DFS work over at fantasydfsexperts.com
You can find my NHL Betting work over at wageralarm.com @wageralarm
To see other articles I’ve written about the NHL, click here.
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