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 Tampa Bay and Minnesota, and this is the best pair of rosters the series has left.
They finished two points apart last season, Tampa Bay on 106 and Minnesota on 104, and they hold the fourth and third best top threes on our board. That is where the similarity ends. Tampa Bay's first option is 278.7 fantasy points clear of its second, the third largest gap of any team. Minnesota's first two are separated by 1.3, the second smallest. One roster hands you the best player in this article and two more ranked in the thirties. The other hands you three players inside the top 17, a trio only Edmonton matches.
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.
Nikita Kucherov, Tampa Bay
Kucherov is 3rd overall on our board and the highest ranked player in this article by 7 places. We project 46 goals, 82 assists and 128 points, with 46 power play points on an 85.7% share, the largest man advantage workload here by a distance.
The remarkable thing at 33 is how little the production moves. His last four full seasons read 113, 144, 121 and 130 points. His floor of 950 is higher than every other player's ceiling in this article except Boldy's, which is the clearest way to say what a 94 point band means at this level.
The one number we are asking a question of is his conversion. He scored 44 goals on 231 shots last season, a 19.0% rate, after four seasons at 16.0%, 11.1%, 14.4% and 14.0%. We project 46 goals on 271 shots, 17.0%, so our number splits the difference rather than assuming last season was the new normal. His shot volume also came down to 3.04 per game from a peak of 3.78, and we have it recovering.
Jake Guentzel, Tampa Bay
Guentzel is 33rd overall and 278.7 fantasy points behind his own teammate. We project 39 goals, 45 assists and 84 points on 228 shots, with 23 power play points on an 80.9% share, second here only to Kucherov.
His two seasons in Tampa Bay have been the two best goal scoring seasons of his career: 41 in 80 games, then 38 in 81. He has also been durable through them, with availability at 93.2% and a band only 86 points wide.
The caution is the same one as Kucherov's, in a smaller package. Those goals came at 18.9% and 17.3%, against 14.8% and 11.9% in his last two Pittsburgh seasons. We project 39 on 228 shots, 17.1%, which asks the Tampa Bay version to be the real one. Playing on the same power play unit as an 85.7% share teammate is a large part of why we think it holds.
Brandon Hagel, Tampa Bay
Hagel is 34th overall, 9.5 fantasy points behind Guentzel, and he gets there in a completely different way. His power play share is 45.0%, the lowest in this article by more than 30 points, and we project just 11 power play points against Guentzel's 23 and Kucherov's 46.
That means almost all of his value is even strength, which is the most durable kind. We project 36 goals, 46 assists and 82 points on 243 shots. His availability is 95.9%, the highest here, and he has played 81, 82, 82 and 71 games in his four full seasons.
His scoring has climbed on rising volume, 64 points, then 75, then 90, then 74 last season in 71 games, on a shot rate that has gone 2.20 per game to 3.01. He is the safest of the three and the one whose value does not depend on a particular unit staying together.
Matt Boldy, Minnesota
Boldy is 10th overall and the second highest ranked player in this article. We project 42 goals, 54 assists and 96 points on 279 shots, with 33 power play points on a 75.5% share.
He has improved in every season of his career: 39 points, then 63, 69, 73 and 85 last year. The shot volume tells the same story, 2.40 per game up to 3.34. What changed last season was conversion. He scored 42 goals on 254 shots, a 16.5% rate, after three seasons at 12.2%, 12.8% and 10.0%.
Our projection asks him to hold most of that. The 42 goals on 279 shots is 15.1%, below last season but well above anything he had done before it. That is the argument inside his 735 to 983 band, which at 248 points is the widest in this article by 142.
Kirill Kaprizov, Minnesota
Kaprizov projects 848.8 fantasy points, 1.3 behind Boldy. Minnesota's top two are the second closest first and second options of any team on our board, behind only St. Louis, where Robert Thomas and Dylan Holloway are separated by 0.5.
We project 46 goals, 50 assists and 96 points on 292 shots, the most in this article, with 33 power play points on a 77.3% share. Where Boldy's projection asks for something new, Kaprizov's asks for slightly less than he has been doing. His shooting percentage over the last five years reads 16.3, 15.3, 16.6, 17.2 and 16.7, and our 46 goals on 292 shots is 15.8%.
The number that separates the two of them is games. His availability is 83.4%, the lowest in this article, and his last five seasons are 81, 67, 75, 41 and 78 games. That 41 game season is why a player this consistent still carries a 106 point band.
He is signed through 2034 at $17.00M, the second largest cap hit in the league behind Leo Carlsson's $18.00M.
Quinn Hughes, Minnesota
Hughes is the most interesting projection in this article. We have him at 97 points, the most of any defenceman on our board, ahead of Evan Bouchard at 92 and Cale Makar at 88. His 84 assists are second among all skaters, behind only Connor McDavid's 90.
He is still only the fourth ranked defenceman by fantasy points, at 802.6 behind Makar, Bouchard and Zach Werenski. That is the difference between scoring and fantasy scoring in a single player: he projects 13 goals and 27 hits, so the categories that lift the other three past him are the ones he does not fill.
What he does fill is assists and the power play. His 83.4% power play share is second here only to Kucherov's, and he blocks 103 shots, the most in this article by 44.
His band is 761 to 844, 83 points wide, the tightest here. Last season split across the trade, 23 points in 26 games with Vancouver and 53 in 48 with Minnesota, 76 points in 74 games in total, almost exactly the pace of the 92 point season he had two years before it.
What we would do
Tampa Bay is a draft you can plan around. Kucherov at 3rd overall is one of the few players on the board who wins you a category on his own, and behind him Guentzel and Hagel are 9.5 fantasy points apart with opposite shapes, so you can take either and know what you are getting. The thing to be honest about is that two of the three are coming off the best shooting seasons of their careers, and our projections trim both without erasing them.
Minnesota asks a different question. Nobody here reaches Kucherov, but Boldy and Kaprizov are 10th and 11th overall and 1.3 points apart, and Hughes is the highest scoring defenceman on our board at a position where points are hard to find. Their three sit inside 47.5 fantasy points of each other and all three are inside the top 17, which only Edmonton also manages. Tampa Bay gives you the single best player in this article. Minnesota gives you the best three.
Floor, ceiling and availability on all 406 skaters and 80 goalies, sortable.
Open the Fantasy board
