Labour Day weekend is behind us, football is around the corner, and that means fantasy hockey draft season is in full swing. While we (including you, dear reader) have been getting ready basically before the 2022 Stanley Cup was even handed out, there's a difference between researching and actually drafting. Sitting at the table – virtual or not – is different than reading blogs or working on Excel sheets. For anyone that may just be catching up now, we cannot recommend our own 2022 Dobber Hockey Fantasy Guide enough. It has been, and will be, constantly updated right until the season starts, and contains projections, rankings, depth charts, projected line combinations, articles from our writers, and more. Be sure to pick up your copy of the Guide and help support what we do all year round.

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One aspect of fantasy hockey drafting that can sometimes get overlooked is team stacking. Simply, it's just drafting a handful of top-end players from the same franchise to try and capitalize on one of the top offensive teams in the league. We are not talking about the very obvious situations, either. To tell someone, "Simply draft Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl, or Nathan MacKinnon and Cale Makar" isn't very helpful. Unless you're in a four-team league, or some sort of keeper/dynasty format, having those pairs on your roster is virtually impossible.

So, let's talk about stacks, baby. Let's talk about some teams and players to target to try and get those high-end players from high-end teams that aren't necessarily thought of in that sense. We'll ignore the usual suspects in Edmonton, Tampa Bay, Colorado, and Toronto, and also spots we talked about last season in Florida, Minnesota, and Calgary. We'll focus on guys and teams that we can actually pick in 12-team leagues without wasting all our top picks. For now, I'll continue to use ADP data from Underdog Fantasy I referenced last week. I don't fully trust Yahoo! ADP this early because of auto-drafters and Underdog now has over 100 cash leagues drafted, which is a decent sample. As a reminder, Underdog uses a points system with points for goals (6), assists (4), power play points (0.5), shots (1), hits (0.5), blocks (1), wins (6), saves (0.6), and goals against (-3). It's not perfect, but it's a good start for now. We'll look at five teams that should at least be considered for fantasy stacks.

First, I want to talk about a few teams I am nottargeting for stacks.

Ottawa

This franchise seems to be the darling of the offseason by trading for Alex DeBrincat and Claude Giroux. There are a number of issues, though. The obvious one is something we've talked about here at Dobber Hockey often: the Hockey Canada sexual assault cases could result in suspensions in two Senators players, one of them a prominent fantasy asset. We could draft them and not have them play a game this year, or not draft them and have them play the full season. There's too much uncertainty and I think the community in general is far too high on this group from a value perspective.

Boston

Injuries are just way too prominent. We could see a couple months missed from Brad Marchand and Charlie McAvoy, two key cogs on the top PP unit, and there's no telling how they'll perform when they return. In H2H/playoff formats, I could see the argument, but your team has to get there first and there are enough moving parts that if I'm drafting just a couple fantasy teams, I am not stacking from the Bruins.

Vegas

Just going by early ADP, it seems the value is being sucked out of Jack Eichel. He is going very highly and there's no guarantee that team is as good as it was a couple years ago, especially with Mark Stone's health up in the air. Combine that with a muddled power play situation for Shea Theodore and Alex Pietrangelo, and this is another case where if I'm only drafting a couple teams, I'm bypassing the Golden Knights.

St. Louis

My big concern here is how they perform without David Perron. The team scored anywhere from 15-20% less on the power play when Ryan O'Reilly was on the ice without Perron, per Natural Stat Trick. Meanwhile, O'Reilly, Robert Thomas, and Pavel Buchnevich combined for 90 hits all of last year with an aggregate 2.2 shots per game. In points-only formats, there could be an argument here, but not for multi-cat formats. The upside just isn't there across the board.  

Alright, enough of the negativity. Let's get to some teams we can look to nab a few players from in hopes of hitting a grand slam.

Columbus

The one caveat that I will offer here is that this may depend on the health of Boone Jenner. He missed the final seven weeks of the season with a back injury, a problem he's had for much of his career. In a fortuitous turn of events, Blue Jackets beat writer Aaron Portzline had a positive update on Jenner yesterday, as the centre says he's ready for training camp. If we can get 75 games out of him, there should be excitement here.

It does seem a lot of people think Jack Roslovic will be the top-line centre, at least in name, beside Johnny Gaudreau. As I've pointed out a couple times, Roslovic is a career 42.4% on faceoffs and in three seasons with at least 200 faceoffs taken, he's never been above 43.5%. While focusing on that exclusively can be misleading, it's hard to see a coach rely on a centre that is so bad at faceoffs as his top pivot. Conversely, Jenner is a career 53.9% guy and has been above 53% in five straight seasons. If he's healthy, I think he's the top-line centre. While he may not be a monster point producer, he could be over 2.5 shots and 1.5 hits per game. He had 44 points and 80 hits in 59 contests last year, and the team has added Gaudreau since.

Individual leagues will vary, but it's likely that Gaudreau would be the only guy from a Columbus stack that will regularly be drafted inside the top 50 picks. We can grab Patrik Laine and Zach Werenski in the back half of the top 100, and then Jenner much later. That would allow us to still get an elite first rounder and fill out our team with very good picks in the first 100 players off the board, in case the Jackets stack blows up in our faces. Gaudreau, Laine, and Zach Werenski don't hit much but I don't think the value is far off, either.

Vancouver

Here we have a stack that is both enticing and concerning. To start with the negative, there aren't really great multi-cat guys available here. Like Columbus, a few of the guys we'd focus on – Elias Pettersson, Quinn Hughes, Brock Boeser – aren't physical guys that will rack up hits. Hughes doesn't really shoot a lot, either, though neither does Adam Fox and he's going rounds – plural – higher than Hughes. J.T. Miller is the guy who will lay the body and with his point total, and he'll be the first off the board in a Vancouver stack.

With all that out of the way, Vancouver was second in the league in goals/60 minutes at 5-on-4 once Bruce Boudreau was hired in early December, though the 5-on-5 scoring lagged well behind. But the gang is back together, and Miller is the only player in a Canucks stack who will require a pick in the first 4-5 rounds. We can get a couple elite players at the top of the draft, grab Miller, Hughes, and Pettersson in rounds 3-7 (or thereabouts), then nab Boeser much later. I don't want to dismiss Bo Horvat here, but I'm not sure he has the raw points or peripheral upside to be a top-25 player. It's a stretch for Boeser, too, but he shoots more, and the goals can be very important.

Carolina

This is another option where we can probably get away with not taking a single player off this roster in the first couple rounds, which feels odd because Carolina is a genuine Cup contender. It helps illustrate the dichotomy between fantasy value and real-world value (and the perceptions of both).

Nevertheless, even with Max Pacioretty injured until 2023, there is a lot of fantasy goodness here. We have Sebastian Aho averaging over a point-per-game and 2.8 shots per game for years and seemingly has more to give. We also have Andrei Svechnikov as a massive multi-cat player, coming off a season that featured 30 goals, 249 shots, and 189 hits. This is a periodic reminder that he's only 22 years old despite having 283 regular season games under his belt. If he can get a TOI boost, he could be a top-5 winger in multi-cat formats. Brent Burns is getting up there in years but absolutely has a 50-point, 200-shot, 20-PPP, 200-blocks+hits season in him if he's healthy. If he can turn the clock back one more time, he could be a great value. It's a big 'if', but fantasy championships are built on hope.

Then there is the trio of wingers in Pacioretty, Seth Jervis, and Teuvo Teravainen.

As for Pacioretty, in H2H or best ball formats, I don't have a real problem drafting him. He should be back sometime in February, which gives him a month to get his game up to speed for fantasy playoffs. My concern is that he could be over-drafted in some leagues; he's going in the 10^th round of Underdog leagues that have fantasy playoffs. If I can get him in the final few rounds, then great, but I'm not foregoing guys like Jesper Bratt or Valeri Nichushkin to hopefully get a healthy Patches in March.

Teravainen's value depends significantly on format. Where we're discussing leagues that value shots and hits, a guy averaging 2.6 shots and 0.25 hits per game doesn't move the needle a ton. If he somehow explodes for a 90-point season, we could be cooking with gas. As it is, in this format, he was outscored by Zach Hyman, who had 54 points. He's not a necessity.

The winger that I think is necessary is Seth Jarvis. I wrote about his scoring chance data from the regular season as well as a bit on his playoff performance. He's a player I am very high on and with Pacioretty injured and Vincent Trocheck in New York, there's a strong chance he starts the year on the top power-play unit. He led all Carolina forwards in points per 60 minutes at 5-on-5 in his rookie season, posting over one hit per game despite playing under 14 minutes a night. If he's getting 17 minutes a game and performs like I believe he can, he could be a top-50 player over the first four months. Pacioretty returning in February could kick him off the top PP unit but with as late as Jarvis is being drafted, there's still a lot of value here.

Dallas

A reminder that Jason Robertson was injured to start the 2021-22 season, not returning until late October. Once he returned, Roope Hintz had 37 goals and 71 points in 74 games, averaging 2.7 shots per game. And, very sneakily, Hintz is someone that lays the body with 94 hits/82 games over the last three years. Dallas may not have a lot of depth scoring unless Tyler Seguin and Jamie Benn turn back the clock, but Hintz and the top line is excellent.

As for Robertson, he's probably the only player from this stack that will require a pick in the first four rounds, and even then, it'll be outside the top-25. Over his three seasons, Robertson is top-10 in the league in points per 60 minutes, ahead of names like Stamkos, Huberdeau, and Draisaitl. If he can get a TOI boost, there is a 100-point possibility here, and he was just shy of three shots per game in 2021-22.

Joe Pavelski could be the lynchpin here. He's had a resurgence over the last couple years playing on that top line and guys that can post 30-goal, 200-shot, 100-hit seasons going outside the top-100 picks are rare. The question is when does his age catch up with him, as he's now 38 years old.

Finally, there's Miro Heiskanen. I wrote back in July about why I'm a bit nervous about just handing him the PP1 reigns with John Klingberg gone, but there's no denying the upside if all goes right. I am just not sure if he has the peripheral upside to be an elite fantasy defenceman, but he's a necessary part of the stack if we go in this direction.  

New Jersey

Depending on the league, there may not be a single guy from a New Jersey stack that is taken in the first three rounds. That allows us to build up the top of our fantasy rosters, much like a Vancouver stack, before grabbing the necessary stack-ees.

Jack Hughes tops our list, obviously. Though injured last year, it was a breakout season for him, and he clearly has 90-point, 250-shot, 25-PPP upside. He doesn't hit at all, but the rest of his profile can make up for it. The team improving around him will only help.

The ADP of Dougie Hamilton was a topic of mine last week, and he's one of the top defence options regularly drafted outside the top-10 defencemen that has top-5 upside in multi-cat leagues. That he could be taken as a second defenceman on a lot of teams feels like a steal of a value.

It is very notable that Jesper Bratt earned a bigger role on the team as the season wore on. He skated 16:53 through the end of February but 18:23 over his final 28 games. If he's regularly over 18 minutes a night, playing with Hughes or Nico Hischier, he has point-per-game, 200-shot upside. It's just unfortunate he doesn't hit much or else is fantasy profile would make for a real steal. As it is, he's still going outside the top-100 so there's still value left.

While I'm a believer in Alexander Holtz, I still think Ondrej Palat is the winger to take after Bratt. Back in the COVID 2021 season with Nikita Kucherov injured, Palat was a fixture of the Lightning's top PP unit, and he posted 20 PPPs in 55 games. He's not guaranteed a PP1 role in New Jersey, but if he does get it, he'll have top-6/top-PP status, skating with top-end offensive players. For a guy that can post 1.5 hits per game, I think he's a tremendous value late in drafts.

Alright, those are some of the teams I'm targeting for fantasy stacks. Who are some of yours? Let us know in the comments.