It’s almost time – the first puck is mere days away from being dropped on the 2024/2025 NHL season. So you’ve got to get your fantasy hockey team sorted out – and quick. We have you covered with our 2024 Fantasy Hockey Rankings – the consensus top 100 fantasy hockey players heading into this new season. Good luck!
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2024 Fantasy Hockey Rankings
| 1 | Connor | McDavid | F | EDM |
| 2 | Nathan | MacKinnon | F | COL |
These two guys are the consensus top two picks off the board in this order – Connor McDavid and then Nathan MacKinnon. These are no-brainer picks, so you’re set if you are lucky enough to get a top-two pick.
| 3 | Leon | Draisaitl | F | EDM |
| 4 | Auston | Matthews | F | TOR |
| 5 | Nikita | Kucherov | F | TBL |
| 6 | David | Pastrnak | F | BOS |
The next tier isn’t quite so cut and dry, but if you have a top-six pick you’ll have your choice of at least one of them. Leon Draisaitl and Auston Matthews are a toss-up with the third pick, but you probably can’t go wrong with either. The same goes with Nikita Kucherov and David Pastrnak – very close and there probably isn’t a right or wrong way to go between the two of them.
| 7 | Mikko | Rantanen | F | COL |
| 8 | Cale | Makar | D | COL |
| 9 | Brady | Tkachuk | F | OTT |
| 10 | Artemi | Panarin | F | NYR |
| 11 | Matthew | Tkachuk | F | FLA |
| 12 | Kirill | Kaprizov | F | MIN |
| 13 | J.T. | Miller | F | VAN |
In a standard 12-team fantasy hockey league, these guys will be off the board in Round 1 (well, technically one of them won’t since there are 13 players listed so far). Cale Makar has to be the most valuable one considering he’s the lone non-forward to pop up on the list thus far, yet he still registered 90 points last season. And which Tkachuk you choose given the chance is a tough call.
| 14 | Jack | Hughes | F | NJD |
| 15 | William | Nylander | F | TOR |
| 16 | Sidney | Crosby | F | PIT |
| 17 | Quinn | Hughes | D | VAN |
| 18 | Roman | Josi | D | NSH |
| 19 | Igor | Shesterkin | G | NYR |
| 20 | Zach | Hyman | F | EDM |
| 21 | Elias | Pettersson | F | VAN |
| 22 | Evan | Bouchard | D | EDM |
| 23 | Connor | Hellebuyck | G | WPG |
| 24 | Mitch | Marner | F | TOR |
| 25 | Jason | Robertson | F | DAL |
| 26 | Juuse | Saros | G | NSH |
| 27 | Brayden | Point | F | TBL |
| 28 | Sebastian | Aho | F | CAR |
| 29 | Sam | Reinhart | F | FLA |
All these guys are possible second-round picks. We get two Hughes brothers popping up here, as well as our first set of goalies. The New York Rangers’ Igor Shesterkin is the most popular pick as the best fantasy hockey goalie for this upcoming season, but Connor Hellebuyck and Juuse Saros aren’t too far behind, so don’t reach for Shesterkin if better players are on the board.
| 30 | Kyle | Connor | F | WPG |
| 31 | Jake | Guentzel | F | TBL |
| 32 | Filip | Forsberg | F | NSH |
| 33 | Jake | Oettinger | G | DAL |
| 34 | Connor | Bedard | F | CHI |
| 35 | Jack | Eichel | F | VGK |
| 36 | Rasmus | Dahlin | D | BUF |
| 37 | Adam | Fox | D | NYR |
| 38 | Jeremy | Swayman | G | BOS |
| 39 | Aleksander | Barkov | F | FLA |
| 40 | Chris | Kreider | F | NYR |
| 41 | Victor | Hedman | D | TBL |
| 42 | Steven | Stamkos | F | NSH |
Your potential third-rounders. Obviously, the most intriguing name in this group is second-year phenom Connor Bedard. Surely someone in your draft will consider taking him before the 34th pick, so you have to decide if he’s worth taking higher than he’s valued at heading into the season and hope for him to be even better than expected.
| 43 | Andrei | Vasilevskiy | G | TBL |
| 44 | Alex | Ovechkin | F | WSH |
| 45 | Tim | Stützle | F | OTT |
| 46 | Sergei | Bobrovsky | G | FLA |
| 47 | Tage | Thompson | F | BUF |
| 48 | Adrian | Kempe | F | LAK |
| 49 | Vincent | Trocheck | F | NYR |
| 50 | Carter | Verhaeghe | F | FLA |
| 51 | Brad | Marchand | F | BOS |
| 52 | Mika | Zibanejad | F | NYR |
| 53 | Noah | Dobson | D | NYI |
Can the old dog Alex Ovechkin pass Wayne Gretzky’s career goal record this season? At the very least you can pencil the Russian in for 30+ goals. And which Tage Thompson will show up this season – the 2022/23 one or last season’s? And you can’t go wrong with Andrei Vasilevskiy in the net, especially if he’s your second goalie.
| 54 | Jesper | Bratt | F | NJD |
| 55 | Wyatt | Johnston | F | DAL |
| 56 | Joel | Eriksson Ek | F | MIN |
| 57 | Dylan | Larkin | F | DET |
| 58 | Josh | Morrissey | D | WPG |
| 59 | Ilya | Sorokin | G | NYI |
| 60 | Roope | Hintz | F | DAL |
| 61 | Clayton | Keller | F | UTA |
| 62 | Andrei | Svechnikov | F | CAR |
| 63 | Kevin | Fiala | F | LAK |
| 64 | Stuart | Skinner | G | EDM |
| 65 | Travis | Konecny | F | PHI |
The potential fifth-rounders. You have to like 21-year-old Wyatt Johnston’s upside, especially if you can get him in the mid-50s of your draft.
| 66 | Dougie | Hamilton | D | NJD |
| 67 | Mathew | Barzal | F | NYI |
| 68 | John | Tavares | F | TOR |
| 69 | Cole | Caufield | F | MTL |
| 70 | Timo | Meier | F | NJD |
| 71 | Robert | Thomas | F | STL |
| 72 | Jacob | Markstrom | G | NJD |
| 73 | Bo | Horvat | F | NYI |
| 74 | Jonathan | Marchessault | F | NSH |
| 75 | Miro | Heiskanen | D | DAL |
| 76 | Ryan | Nugent-Hopkins | F | EDM |
| 77 | Brock | Boeser | F | VAN |
| 78 | Alexandar | Georgiev | G | COL |
A mixture of veterans and youngsters – I always lean toward the youngsters in fantasy sports and hope for a breakout year.
| 79 | Mark | Scheifele | F | WPG |
| 80 | Brock | Nelson | F | NYI |
| 81 | Nick | Suzuki | F | MTL |
| 82 | Nico | Hischier | F | NJD |
| 83 | Charlie | McAvoy | D | BOS |
| 84 | Alex | DeBrincat | F | DET |
| 85 | Matt | Boldy | F | MIN |
| 86 | Patrick | Kane | F | DET |
| 87 | Thatcher | Demko | G | VAN |
| 88 | Anze | Kopitar | F | LAK |
| 89 | Brandon | Hagel | F | TBL |
| 90 | Owen | Tippett | F | PHI |
| 91 | Mikhail | Sergachev | D | UTA |
| 92 | Nikolaj | Ehlers | F | WPG |
| 93 | Alexis | Lafreniere | F | NYR |
| 94 | Juraj | Slafkovsky | F | MTL |
| 95 | Seth | Jarvis | F | CAR |
| 96 | Evgeni | Malkin | F | PIT |
| 97 | Erik | Karlsson | D | PIT |
| 98 | Jordan | Kyrou | F | STL |
| 99 | Nazem | Kadri | F | CGY |
| 100 | Mortiz | Seider | D | DET |
The rest. I would suggest getting two goalies within the top 100 – quality fantasy hockey goalies are hard to come by on the waiver wire.
If you’d like even more NHL talk, be sure to check out the Hockey Gambling Podcast. The guys are dropping multiple episodes a week to make you the smartest guy at the bar.
