Fantasy Hockey Rest of Season Rankings

Welcome to the rest of season fantasy hockey rankings, NHL All-Star edition. With the All-Star Weekend behind us, we can turn our attention back to our fantasy hockey leagues as we gear up for the trade deadline. We’ve already seen a couple of notable trades in recent days, and we are bound to see more that can impact a player’s fantasy value.

At the Top

This has been Connor McDavid’s spot for quite some time, but he has been pushed down to the second-ranking in place of Nathan MacKinnon. Nikita Kucherov leads the league with 85 points, making this trio the top three by a comfortable margin. MacKinnon’s 84 points are second in the league, which is 17 more points than McDavid’s 67 point total. MacKinnon has been building a gap between himself and McDavid over the past two months, and he’s narrowed the gap between himself and Kucherov who once held a healthier lead in the points race.

Quinn Hughes and Cale Makar headline the defensemen. They are head and shoulders above their peers from a fantasy standpoint, and you can expect that to continue being the case for the rest of the season. Noah Dobson, Adam Fox, and Evan Bouchard round out the top five. There is a real possibility that we see not just one, but two defensemen reach 100 points this year. It’s an exciting era to draft defensemen, as they can now match many elite forwards in terms of production. This simply wasn’t the case for a number of years.

On the goaltending front, Connor Hellebuyck and Thatcher Demko lead the way. It’s not an easy decision to say who will be better down the stretch, but I’m giving a slight edge to Hellebuyck. Don’t be surprised when these two finish as the top two in Vezina voting for the best goalie of the season. Beyond them, Jeremy Swayman has been the better Bruin netminder, although Linus Ullmark has been very good as well. After an unbelievable 2022-23 campaign by Ullmark, the duo are receiving fairly even playing time, with Ullmark playing 24 games to Swayman’s 27. Then there’s Igor Shesterkin and Ilya Sorokin. These two were deadlocked as the top two goalies between the Fantrax staff ahead of the season. While they haven’t lived up to that billing, they are still two of the better goaltenders to have on your roster.

Risers

Matthew Tkachuk started very high on the rankings but saw his placement slide over time as his play wasn’t meeting expectations. However, since the turn of the calendar to 2024, he has been one of the most productive players in the league. It will vary on the categories your league uses, but in many formats, he has been the most valuable player in fantasy hockey over that time frame. As a result, he has soared back up into the top 10 on the rest of season rankings.

As I previously mentioned, we saw two recent trades ahead of the All-Star break. If we’re focusing on just the NHL players involved, Elias Lindholm went to the Vancouver Canucks, Andrei Kuzmenko to the Calgary Flames, and Sean Monahan was dealt to the Winnipeg Jets. All three should see a boost in their fantasy production. For a further breakdown, you should check out our article covering the trades here.

Rest of Season Fantasy Hockey Rankings

These fantasy hockey rankings are based on the following categories: Goals, Assists, Plus/Minus, Shots on Goal, Power Play Points, Hits, Wins, Goals Against Average, Save Percentage, and Shutouts.

Notable Injuries/Absences:

Frederik Andersen, G, CAR
Viktor Arvidsson, LW/RW, LAK
Kirby Dach, C/RW, MTL
Dougie Hamilton, D, NJD
Taylor Hall, LW, CHI
John Klingberg, D, TOR
Patrik Laine, C/LW/RW, CBJ
Gabriel Landeskog, LW, COL
Valeri Nichushkin, LW/RW, COL
Joseph Woll, G, TOR