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 Detroit and Columbus.
These two break in opposite directions. Detroit's second, third and fourth best fantasy players are ranked 53rd, 54th and 55th on our board and separated by four fantasy points in total, so the third name on their list is close to a coin flip. Columbus has one player 133 points clear of everyone else on the roster, and he is the highest-ranked player in this article.
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.
Alex DeBrincat, Detroit
DeBrincat is 29th overall and coming off the best season of his career, 41 goals and 44 assists on 287 shots. He has also played all 82 games five years running, which is rarer than it sounds: of the 807 players we carry an availability figure for, six have a clean five-season record. Two of the six are Detroit's, and both are on this list.
The number to be careful with is his shooting percentage, which has gone 15.2%, 10.3%, 11.4%, 16.0% and 14.3%. That is a real swing between good years and ordinary ones, and his goal totals follow it exactly: 41, 27, 27, 39, 41. Our projection lands at 39 goals on 272 shots, which is the same 14.3% rate he just posted rather than a bet on either extreme.
His band is 674 to 785, 111 points wide, and the thing sitting underneath it is his contract. He is on $7.88M through 2027 and becomes a free agent next summer, so a Detroit team that misses the playoffs has a decision to make with him in the middle of it.
Moritz Seider, Detroit
Seider is the second of them. Five seasons, 82 games in every one, and he does it while playing the most physical role of anyone on this page. The other four names on that league-wide list are Brent Burns, Charlie Coyle, Dawson Mercer and Nick Suzuki, which is the company Detroit are keeping on durability.
We project 168 blocks, which is the most of any player in this article, ahead of Zach Werenski at 108. Add 120 hits and 28 power play points and he is a category-league asset before you count a single point. His scoring reached a career high of 60 last season on 50 assists.
His band is the widest thing on Detroit's list at 567 to 819, 252 points, and the reason is his shooting. He has finished at 3.7%, 3.6%, 6.7%, 4.9% and 5.3%, so his goal total moves almost at random from year to year and his assists carry everything. In a points-only league that band is a warning. In a league that counts blocks it barely matters.
Dylan Larkin, Detroit
Larkin is 54th overall, two fantasy points ahead of Lucas Raymond and two behind Seider, which is another way of saying our board cannot separate them. What separates him for our purposes is the band: 615 to 704, 89 points wide, the tightest of any skater in this article.
Five seasons of 69, 79, 69, 70 and 67 points is why. He has finished between 12.8% and 14.9% every year in that run, taken between 212 and 244 shots, and our projection of 32 goals and 74 points is simply the middle of his own record. He is the safest floor on either roster.
The complication is not on the ice. Larkin requested a trade this offseason and carries a full no-trade clause through 2027-28, so he controls where he goes and whether he goes at all. Our projection assumes the usage he has always had, 66.1% of Detroit's power play, and a move is the one thing that could change it.
Zach Werenski, Columbus
Werenski is coming off a Norris-winning season and sits 16th overall on our board, the highest-ranked player in this article by 13 places. We project 81 points, 300 shots and 108 blocks, and the shot total is the tell: no other defenceman in this article is within 120 of it, and it is why his fantasy value survives even a quiet scoring year.
He has done it twice now, 82 points and then 81, on shooting of 7.7% and 8.5%. That is a defenceman scoring at forward rates without needing luck, and his 76.9% power play share says Columbus have organised themselves around it.
The number people will hold against him is availability, and it needs reading properly. We have him at 74.9%, the lowest in this article, but one season does nearly all of it: 13 games in 2022-23. His other four read 68, 70, 81 and 75, and he has played 91.9% of the last three years. That is one bad year, not a trait. His band of 725 to 883 is built on it regardless, and the ceiling would rank 8th overall while the floor still ranks 31st.
Kirill Marchenko, Columbus
Marchenko is 48th overall on $3.85M, which is the best price-to-production on either roster, and it expires next summer. We project 36 goals and 73 points on 230 shots with a 73.1% power play share.
He has only four NHL seasons and they read 21, 23, 31 and 27 goals, on shooting percentages of 16.0%, 11.9%, 15.0% and 12.4%. Our projection of 36 would be a career high by five, and that is what the band is arguing about: 561 to 781, 220 points wide, on a 26-year-old with a short record and a rising role.
Adam Fantilli, Columbus
Fantilli is 21, third on this roster at 98th overall, and the only player in this article without a contract. He is a restricted free agent with an extension still unsigned, so treat every number here as conditional on that getting done.
The projection is 32 goals, 67 points and 133 hits, and the hits are the part people miss: only Moritz Seider is close, 13 back at 120. His three seasons went 27 points in 49 games, then 54, then 59, and his shooting percentage has gone 10.4%, 16.2% and 11.2%.
His band runs 508 to 726, 218 points wide, which is the honest position for a 21-year-old with 213 NHL games. The ceiling is a player you draft in the second round next year and the floor is one you drop in November, and nothing in the record yet tells you which.
What we would actually do
DeBrincat first on the Detroit side and it is the only easy call they offer. After that, take the one your league pays for: Seider if it counts blocks, because 168 is the most in this article and nobody else is close, and Larkin if it does not, because 89 points of band is the narrowest here and he has produced between 67 and 79 points for five straight years. Lucas Raymond at 55th is two points behind Larkin and belongs in the same conversation, so if someone takes both ahead of you, you have not lost much.
On the Columbus side Werenski is a top-two-round pick and the availability is the price of admission. Marchenko is the value, 48th overall on a contract that pays him like a depth forward. Fantilli is the one to have an opinion about, because an unsigned 21-year-old with a 726 ceiling is either the best pick on this page or the one you regret, and his contract will tell you which before your draft does.
Floor, ceiling and availability on all 406 skaters and 80 goalies, sortable.
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