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 Florida and Edmonton.
Edmonton's top three rank 2nd, 5th and 15th on our board, and one of them is a defenceman we project for 92 points. Florida's top two are brothers who could end up on the same line at some point, and the question on their side is not how good they are but how many games you get.
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.
Brady Tkachuk, Florida
Brady is 13th overall, the highest-ranked Florida player, and he arrived from Ottawa in June. Everything in his record is an Ottawa record, so read the usage carefully. He took 61.7% of his team's power play time last season, the lowest share of any forward in this article. Florida's first unit already has options. Matthew took 77.4% of it, Reinhart 71.0%, Verhaeghe 48.3%, and Barkov is back after missing the year. Verhaeghe is the one most likely to come off, but he is a shooter and Brady is a power forward, which is a different job on the same unit.
What does not depend on the team is the hitting. We project 190 hits, more than double anyone else here, and 329 shots, also the most in this article. In a category league that combination is close to a cheat code, because most players who hit that much do not shoot that much.
His scoring is steadier than it looks. He has shot between 9.8% and 10.4% in all five seasons, which is about as consistent as a shooting percentage gets, so his goal totals track his shot volume almost exactly. Our projection of 41 goals on 329 shots is a 12.5% rate.
Matthew Tkachuk, Florida
Matthew is 24th overall and we project him for more points than his brother, 93 to 90, on 82 fewer shots. He is the passer of the two: 58 assists to Brady's 49, and 31 power play points on a 77.4% share.
His band is 712 to 793, 81 points wide, the tightest in this article, and that is a strange thing to say about the player with the biggest availability problem on the page. We have him at 79.0%, the lowest of the six, and the reason is the last two seasons: 52 games, then 31.
Those two things fit together better than they look. When he plays he produces at a rate nothing in his record disputes, so the band around his per-game scoring is narrow. The risk is not in the rate. It is in the games, and a band does not price a player missing half a season.
Sam Reinhart, Florida
Reinhart is 40th overall and the most available of Florida's top three, at 93.9%. We project 37 goals and 77 points on 223 shots with a 71.0% power play share.
The number to understand before you draft him is his shooting. He scored 57 goals in 2023-24 on a 24.5% shooting percentage, which is not a repeatable rate, and he has gone 18.3% and 17.5% since. Even those are high. Our projection puts him at 16.6%, below all three of his last seasons, and that is deliberate rather than pessimistic.
His band of 638 to 727 is 89 points wide and among the tightest here, which is the model saying it trusts the volume even while it discounts the rate. He is a 36-goal scorer you draft expecting 37, not the 57 that is still in everyone's memory.
Connor McDavid, Edmonton
McDavid is 2nd overall and the argument for him needs one number: 47 projected power play points, the most of any player on our entire board. He runs 86.4% of Edmonton's power play and we project 136 points on 90 assists.
His last four seasons go 153, 132, 100 and 138 points, and the 100 is the one people file as a down year. Six players in the league reached 100 that season and he needed the fewest games of any of them, 67, while nobody else got there in under 71. His rate of 1.49 a night was third in hockey behind Kucherov and Draisaitl, and Draisaitl beat him by four thousandths of a point. We should all slump like that.
The only variable is games. He has missed time in two of the last three years and we have him at 94.4% availability, which is high but not perfect. His band is 980 to 1086, 106 points wide, and the bottom of it would still be the second-best fantasy season in this article. None of which matters at the top of the draft. You take the best player in hockey and move on, and if he is still sitting there at 3 you are having a very good day.
Leon Draisaitl, Edmonton
Draisaitl is 5th overall and the most reliable goal scorer in this article. He has scored between 35 and 55 goals in each of the last five seasons while shooting between 18.8% and 21.7%. Reinhart has had a higher single season than any of those, the 24.5% above, and he has also been down at 13.7%. Draisaitl's entire six-year record sits between 18.5% and 21.7%, and that floor is the rarest thing on this page.
We project 49 goals and 118 points on 263 shots, with 42 power play points on an 85.4% share. He and McDavid are the top two power play producers in this article and it is not close, which is what happens when two players split the same unit and both of them are elite on it.
His band is 887 to 982, and the flat part of his record is why it is only 95 points wide. He has finished with 106, 106, 128 and 110 points across four of the last five seasons. He is 31, on $14.00M through 2033, and nothing about the next twelve months looks like the year it turns.
Evan Bouchard, Edmonton
Bouchard is 15th overall and the only defenceman on this page, and we project 92 points. Only three forwards on this page project higher: McDavid, Draisaitl, and Matthew Tkachuk by a single point.
The engine is the power play. He takes 86.9% of Edmonton's, we project 32 power play points, and he is coming off 74 assists in a season where he played all 82 games. His 99.5% availability is the highest of the six, and he has played 81 or 82 games in each of the last five years.
His band is 726 to 883, 157 points wide and the widest here, and the reason is his shooting. It has gone 5.9%, 5.1%, 8.2%, 6.0% and 9.5%, so his goal total is close to a coin flip and only his assists are dependable. He is a second-round pick who plays a position where nobody else scores like this.
What we would actually do
Edmonton has the best trio in fantasy hockey. Add up every team's top three on our board and the Oilers come out first of 32, 142 fantasy points clear of Colorado in second. Take them in the order above, McDavid, then Draisaitl, then Bouchard, and take whichever one is still there when your pick comes.
On the Florida side take Brady if your league counts hits, because 190 with 329 shots behind it is a combination almost nobody offers. Take Matthew if it does not, because he outscores his brother on our projection and his rate is the safer of the two. Reinhart is the one to take a round later than his ranking suggests, not because we doubt him but because everybody else still remembers the 57 goals. And then there is Barkov. He is 61st overall after missing all of last season with a torn ACL, and we have him at 67.1% availability. If the knee is right he is the best value on this page, and that is a bet the projection cannot make for you.
Floor, ceiling and availability on all 406 skaters and 80 goalies, sortable.
Open the Fantasy board
