No matter how excellent or wretched your start to the fantasy season has been, it’s always a good idea to scour the waiver wire for potential help. 

After all, you never know when a player might go cold, get benched or suffer an injury. And even the strongest fantasy teams will have some weak spots. It’s better that you have a potential list of replacement candidates ready to fill in any gaps instead of scrambling at the last minute. 

Below are 10 potential waiver wire pickups early this season. Browsing through the waiver wire, you can find numerous players in a top-six situation that are still available, as well as plenty of defensemen who can help you win some of your peripheral categories. 

For this list, we’re focusing on players available in at least 70% of Yahoo leagues as of Sunday evening. One of them is available in 99% of leagues! The deeper your fantasy league, the less likely these names are still available, but hopefully, even those of you in deep leagues might be able to find a player or two that could be helpful. 

One thing to keep in mind is that you might need to act fast. When I started researching this column Friday evening, Max Domi was owned in fewer than 10% of Yahoo leagues. By Sunday night, that had skyrocketed to him being rostered in 39%. Most fantasy general managers are smart, and they’ll jump on the hot hand.

10. Brandon Hagel, owned in 8% of Yahoo leagues

Last season, Hagel had a career-high 44 points in 77 games between Chicago and Tampa Bay. Now the 24-year-old looks poised to smash that number as he has three goals and six points in nine games with Tampa. All six of those points have come in the past four games. The reasoning behind the optimism? He gets to play at five-on-five with Nikita Kucherov and Brayden Point. Hagel is on the second power-play unit, and doesn’t produce enough in other categories to be considered a must-have, but he can be a useful player if you’re looking for some potential quick-scoring offense. 

9. Taylor Raddysh, owned in 4% of Yahoo leagues

Last week, I wrote about Raddysh’s surprising amount of power-play time. Even though he was pointless on the power-play in five games as of last Monday, the team didn’t appear to be worried about his lack of production with the man advantage. Since then, Raddysh has put up two power-play points in four games. On the season, he is playing in a top-six role and has six points in nine games to go along with a plus-two, 12 shots and 16 hits.

8. Alexander Barabanov, owned in 1% of Yahoo leagues

Barabanov missed the first few games with a lower-body injury, and he was eased back into the lineup in his first three games. So his overall numbers may not look as impressive. However, in his last four games, he has three points, one power-play point, three shots, three hits and four blocked shots while being used on the top power-play unit (on the ice for about 70% of San Jose’s man-advantage minutes). He’s also been getting reps on the top line with Tomas Hertl and Timo Meier, who are finally starting to produce. 

7. Jason Zucker, owned in 8% of Yahoo leagues

Zucker is finally producing the way Penguins management had hoped ever since they gave up Alex Galchenyuk, Calen Addison and a first-round pick to acquire him back in 2020. Zucker was day-to-day last week, but was back in the lineup Saturday night. He’s not getting much power-play time as he is on the second unit, but he is playing with Evgeni Malkin at five-on-five. In seven games, Zucker has six points, which equates to a 70-point pace, the highest point pace he’s ever reached. He also has 15 shots, plus-two, 20 hits and two power-play points.

6. Rasmus Ristolainen, owned in 10% of Yahoo leagues

He missed the first few weeks of the campaign with a lower-body injury, so he’s only seen two games of action. He’s being eased back into the lineup, so his time on ice isn’t back to normal yet. However, if your league counts hits and blocked shots, Ristolainen is a must-have. Last year, he had 230 hits and 125 blocked shots in 66 games. He’s always an injury risk, but when he’s in the lineup and you need to win some of the peripheral categories, he should be in your lineup rather than someone else’s. 

5. Kevin Hayes, owned in 24% of Yahoo leagues

Everyone has been shocked by the Flyers this season. They were expected to be so bad that many fantasy general managers chose to stay away from anyone from Philly. However, many of them have enjoyed crazy starts to their season. Hayes is being used on the top power-play line and is also averaging more than 19 minutes a night, usage that he’s never experienced before in his career. It’s helped push Hayes to 10 points in eight games. He’s also averaging more than two shots per game. The only thing that is keeping Hayes from going higher on this list is that he can only be listed in the center position. If he ever gets dual eligibility, his value should rise even higher. 

4. Jared McCann, owned in 21% of Yahoo leagues

Truthfully, there are many Kraken that could make this list as there are only two Seattle players (Andre Burakovsky and Matty Beniers) that were owned in more than 33% of Yahoo leagues as of Sunday evening. We’ll focus on two of them with the next two picks. McCann is out here doing normal McCann things, but he’s still unowned in the majority of fantasy leagues. The third-line centre for the Kraken can be found on the top power-play unit, which is helping boost his production. In 10 games, McCann has five goals, eight points, 23 shots and four power-play points. 

3. Jaden Schwartz, owned in 21% of Yahoo leagues

Schwartz has always been a great fantasy producer, even if his health has been an issue for many fantasy general managers. In the seven seasons from 2013-14 to 2019-20, Schwartz had an 82-game pace of 55 points six times, with his highest level at a 78-point pace in 2017-18. Although his last season with the Blues and his first season with the Kraken were disappointing, he seems to be back on track this year. Aside from his poor plus/minus (he’s a minus-six through 10 games), Schwartz is producing in many fantasy categories as he has five goals (four on the power play), five assists, 32 shots, 12 hits and four power-play points. 

2. Filip Hronek, owned in 24% of Yahoo leagues

It’s still early, but Hronek has been a better fantasy option than teammate Moritz Seider so far. Just compare the numbers between the two through eight games:

Hronek: zero goals, five assists, plus-four, six PIM, 14 shots, 14 hits, three power-play points, four blocked shots, 3:18 PP TOI, 21:50 TOI

Seider: zero goals, one assist, minus-one, two PIM, 16 shots, 18 hits, one power-play point, 20 blocked shots, 2:51 PP TOI, 21:59 TOI

I’m not suggesting you drop Seider for Hronek, but grabbing Hronek would also be a smart play right now.

1. David Krejci, owned in 29% of Yahoo leagues

After taking a high stick in last Thursday’s game, Krejci is day-to-day with an upper-body injury, but this is why your league should have IR spots. You don’t drop him, which some fantasy general managers have been doing. Krejci has been nothing short of great for the Bruins, which is phenomenal when you consider he didn’t play in the NHL last season. Even when you include last Thursday’s game, when he played fewer than seven minutes due to injury, Krejci has eight points in eight games. He also has four PIM, 11 shots, four power-play points, five hits, five blocked shots and 47 faceoff wins. He’s playing with David Pastrnak at even strength and is on the top power-play unit. Even though we don’t have a more definitive answer to questions about his current injury, he still deserves to be number one on this list.