2024-25 Fantasy Hockey Consensus Defensemen Rankings

We’ve all heard the saying, defense wins championships. This applies to fantasy hockey as well. Ironically, you want to draft defensemen who can generate a good amount of offense. We’re seeing plenty of that in hockey nowadays, with four defensemen scoring over 80 points this past season. With those thoughts in mind, the top hockey analysts at FantraxHQ put their heads together and hashed out their Consensus Defensemen Rankings for 2024-25 Fantasy Hockey.

I mentioned that you want defensemen who can score, and a big component of offense is power-play usage. You typically want to draft defensemen who anchor the top power-play unit for their team. More power play minutes with the best forwards will lead to more fantasy points. Our rankings take this into heavy consideration, so defensemen who have joined a new team this season, and thus will have an increase or decrease in opportunity, will be reflected in their ranking.

I’ll go over a few examples. Mikhail Sergachev was traded from the Tampa Bay Lightning to the Utah Hockey Club. While Sergachev won’t have talents like Nikita Kucherov and Brayden Point anymore, he also doesn’t have to compete with Victor Hedman for that top power play role. It isn’t a guarantee that Sergachev will get that role in Utah either, but there is an easier path for him now.

Brandon Montour left the Florida Panthers to sign with the Seattle Kraken. Vince Dunn has been Seattle’s offensive blue liner, so will that remain the same, or will Montour get more opportunity? You can see in our rankings that it’s close between the two. Montour’s departure should also lead to better opportunities for Aaron Ekblad and Gustav Forsling.

The Vegas Golden Knights acquired Noah Hanifin from the Calgary Flames last season. I’ll be curious to see how it plays out between Hanifin, Shea Theodore, and Alex Pietrangelo over the course of a full season. It’s a similar scenario with the Buffalo Sabres, having three quality defensemen in Rasmus Dahlin, Bowen Byram, and Owen Power. I think all three of them each have more to give in terms of fantasy production.

Cale Makar is the unanimous top-ranking defenseman. While Quinn Hughes won the Norris Trophy as the league’s best defenseman last year, Makar’s pedigree and ability to eclipse a point-per-game over the course of his career makes it too difficult to pass on him. In saying that, I caution against drafting defensemen too high. In most leagues, it’s generally best to take a forward with your first pick. There are a number of defensemen who are capable of having great fantasy production, so don’t let the fear of missing out cause you to reach for defense too early. Just make sure that when you draft defense, that you consider how their opportunity will impact their fantasy ranking.

Meet the Rankers

In order to conserve space the table below uses the initials of the analysts. They are as follows:

BA = Brandon Altomonte – @Brandon_Alto

RC = Rob Couch – @RobCouch555

LD = Logan Doyle – @doylelb4

SL = Spencer Lazary – @SpencerLazary23

Fantasy Hockey Defensemen Rankings for 2024-25

The Defense Rankings below are based on the following scoring categories: Goals, Assists, Power Play Points, Plus/Minus, Hits, and Shots on Goal.