We are running through all 32 teams, three fantasy players at a time, two new teams every weekday until all 32 are done. Today it is Toronto and Calgary.
Toronto have two players ranked above anyone Calgary owns, and it is not close. Auston Matthews is 8th on our board and William Nylander 23rd, while Calgary's best fantasy asset is a goalie at 102nd and their best skater sits at 170th.
Fantasy points below are Yahoo-style scoring from our 2026-27 projections. The band after each is that player's floor and ceiling, not a guarantee.
Auston Matthews, Toronto
Matthews has gone 107, 78 and 53 points over the last three seasons, on 81, 67 and 60 games. Our projection puts him back at 83, and that is the biggest single call in this article. Look at the band before you spend a first-round pick on him: 732 to 979 is a 247-point spread, and the low end of it is a player you drafted 8th finishing outside the top 40.
What props the floor up is that he is not only a scorer. He blocked 81 shots in 60 games last season, more than three times Nylander's rate, and we have him at 323 shots and 93 blocks. In a category league those two lines are worth real points on their own.
William Nylander, Toronto
Where Matthews has swung, Nylander has not. He missed 17 games last season and still scored 79 points, a rate of 1.22 per game that is the best of his career, ahead of the year he put up 98. Our projection has him at 94, and his band is 712 to 809, 97 points wide against 247 for Matthews. Those 17 games were the exception: across five seasons he has played 95.6% of Toronto's schedule. At 23rd overall he is a second-round pick who behaves like a first.
One number to watch. His shots have fallen three years running, 316 to 253 to 156, the last of those in 65 games. Our projection has them back at 234. If that does not happen he is still a 90-point scorer, but he is no longer a top-25 fantasy player.
John Tavares, Toronto
Tavares is 36 and played all 82 games last season, which is most of the case for drafting him. He has gone 76, 80, 65, 74 and 71 points over five years, our projection has him at 66, and he has played 96.6% of Toronto's games in that window, the best mark of any skater in this article. The 82 hits are a quiet bonus in a category most managers fill with worse players.
One thing to watch, and it is the reason we would not draft him earlier than the rank says. Toronto ran four forwards at almost exactly the same power play share last season: Matthews 66.6%, Tavares 66.1%, Nylander 66.0% and Matthew Knies 66.0%. Gavin McKenna, the first overall pick in the 2026 draft, almost certainly does not start on that unit, because there is no room on it. The risk is what happens if he plays well enough to make room: that time has to come from somewhere, and Tavares and Knies are the two likeliest places it comes from.
Dustin Wolf, Calgary
Wolf posted a .910 save percentage in his first full season and .899 in his second, on a team that gave him little. Our projection splits them at .902 with 26 wins, a 2.75 goals-against average and 5.0 goals saved above expected over 62 starts. Calgary signed him for $7.5M through 2033, so the workload is not in question. He is the 102nd-ranked asset overall and 8th among goalies, which is a starter in every format, and the best fantasy player Calgary have. That last part says more about the roster in front of him than about the goalie.
Matt Coronato, Calgary
Coronato has scored 47 and then 45 points in his two full seasons and our projection has him at 53 on 202 shots. He is 23, signed through 2033 at $6.50M, and Calgary have every reason to play him in every situation that matters. His band runs 414 to 640, which is wide for a player with two seasons of evidence, and the top of it is a genuinely useful fantasy winger. He is the Calgary skater our model likes most.
Matvei Gridin, Calgary
Gridin has one NHL season: 37 games, 6 goals, 14 assists, 20 points. Our projection has him at 49 points over a full year, which is a large jump built on half a season of evidence, and the band of 393 to 570 is the model admitting it. He is 20 and earning $953,750 through 2028. He is here because Calgary's forward group thins out fast behind Coronato, fast enough that he is already the third-best fantasy asset on the roster.
What we would actually do
Nylander is the pick if you want to sleep at night, and Matthews is the pick if your league is won by the person who was right about one player. Tavares is a sixth or seventh rounder who will quietly return a fifth. On the Calgary side only Wolf belongs on a standard roster, Coronato is a late flier worth taking, and Gridin is a keeper-league name rather than a 2026-27 one.
Toronto's most interesting player did not make their top three. Darren Raddysh went 33, then 37, then 70 points last season, turning 6 goals into 22 and 108 shots into 212, and Toronto paid him $8.50M through 2034 on the strength of it. Our projection pulls him back to 60. His band runs 418 to 723, the widest of any player in this article, because the model cannot tell whether last season was a 30-year-old finding another level or simply one very good year. He is 109th overall. If you believe the 70, he is the best value on either roster.
Floor, ceiling and availability on all 406 skaters and 80 goalies, sortable.
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