In yesterday's Ramblings, I went over my first fantasy draft of the season. It was a best ball draft over at Underdog Fantasy and it was part of their Best Puck Classic. The parameters are as follows:

• Drafts are 12-team leagues, but it is a contest with 15 000 entries. There are 18 regular season weeks where the top centre, defence, and goalie score from each team counts each week towards that particular team's overall point totals, in addition to two wingers and one utility player. A best ball format means it's draft-only, so there are no trades, waiver wire, or free agency moves and lineups do not have to be set each week.
• It is a points formats with six points per goal, four points per assists, and points handed out for hits, blocks, shots, and power play points. Goalies get six points for a win, 0.6 points for a save, and three points are deducted for a goal against.
• There are 16 rounds in the draft, so 192 players are drafted.
• After the 18-week regular season, the top three season scores from each 12-team sub-league advance to the playoffs where it is whittled down further each subsequent week.

That about sums it up. The Ramblings yesterday discussed my approach to my team, and today I want to discuss the picks of the entire draft, some thought process, positional ideas, and ADPs. Again, I used Dobber's projections from the 2024-25 Dobber Fantasy Guide, which can be purchased through that link.

With that out of the way, let's get to the draft. Here are the first five rounds:

The very top doesn't really surprise. It is once we get past the first eight picks that things get interesting.

In Tuesday's Ramblings, I mentioned I was surprised to see Filip Forsberg going as a first-round pick, and here is Forsberg going ninth overall. Over the last three seasons, he's averaged 45 goals and 45 assists per 82 games, and he set career-highs last year with 347 shots (clearing his prior high by 100 shots) and hits (clearing his prior high by 27). It isn't that I don't love Forsberg – he has been one of 'my guys' for the better part of a decade now – it's that I think drafting him with the expectation he'll play 80 games and repeat his peripheral performance is lofty. Drafting him ahead of Leon Draisaitl – who has averaged 50 goals and 67 assists per 82 games over the last three years – feels like over-thinking it. Even if Forsberg has the edge in shots and hits, the raw production that Draisaitl brings is extreme.

There were no goalies taken in the first round – smart – but there were 10 goalies taken from picks 22 through 48. Unless a fantasy player is buying into the late-round goalie theory, it's probably best not to wait past the fourth round for your first netminder.

I worry about production from Jason Robertson. It isn't because he's not elite – he is – and it's not because he plays on a bad team – Dallas is a Cup contender – but it's the way they run their team. Robertson skated 18:19 per game last year and was under three shots and one hit per game. Taking him in the middle of the second round ahead of guys like Sam Reinhart or Mitch Marner, who could both easily clear him by a couple of minutes per game in 2024-25, feels like an overreach. If we knew that Robertson was going to skate 20:30 per game on a team that drew a lot of penalties, he'd be a first-round pick. But this is where team context matters, and Dallas spreads its ice time too much for me to rely on him over similar big-minute players.  

Connor Bedard going 29^th overall is interesting. It is about where he went last year, but now he's a year older, has a better team around him, and should play huge minutes. The trio of he, JT Miller, and Elias Pettersson all going one after the other is a fun group because they're three different players: Bedard is The Guy on his team and should rack up a lot of shots, Miller can bring a lot of hits with high rates of production, while Pettersson has 50/50 potential every season.

Ilya Sorokin being the eighth goalie off the board is one of those "how did he fall that far"-type picks. Not that it's completely unwarranted – his .908 save percentage in 2023-24 was a career-low – but he was elite for three years before just being above-average last season. In a dynasty points league I'm in, that above-average season still led to him being the ninth overall goalie. Any sort of rebound from him probably means a top-5 fantasy goalie on the season. Getting him in the middle of the fourth round feels like great value to me, and he's one of the guys I'd be perfectly content having as my number-1 fantasy goalie as I load up on skaters in the first few rounds.

There were four defencemen that went between picks 12-25, but none between picks 26-62. I think this makes sense. This is a format that favours multi-cat performers and power play points. There are only so many guys that are locks for their team's top PP unit and can also put up great peripherals. Options like Adam Fox, Quinn Hughes, and Josh Morrissey just aren't overly valuable, so I don't really have a problem going for a stud defenceman in round 2, especially if you're picking at the top of the draft and can pair them with one of Connor McDavid, Nathan MacKinnon, or Auston Matthews. It is possible to draft both McDavid and Evan Bouchard onto the same fantasy roster this season, which is something to keep in mind. Bouchard isn't a monster peripheral guy, either, but he does have 90-point upside.

Alright, let's look at the next five rounds:

In this group, over one-quarter of the picks (16/60) were defencemen, and this is where we get to that mushy middle. There are peripheral specialists like MacKenzie Weegar and Moritz Seider, producers like Fox and Hughes, and guys who can bring a bit of both like Mike Matheson, Zach Werenski, and Morrissey. I am not going to lie, though, I love the value here on Mikhail Sergachev. He has averaged 130 hits and 146 blocks every 82 games over the last three seasons, and backed it up by averaging 52 points every 82 games. He is now in Utah and should be the go-to top PP guy on a team that is rising. It should not be a surprise to see him as a top-10 fantasy defenceman at the end of the season, and I was very mad he was picked right before me. I will be targeting him a lot after the top 100 picks in my leagues.

I also really like the value on Joel Eriksson Ek. He is a 30-30 guy who can put up over three shots and two hits per game, and if he ever has a season where he gets lucky with his shooting percentage, he can be a 40-40 player. He is a tier down from the elite, but in a multi-cat format like this, it would not surprise me if he produced similar fantasy point totals to guys like Pettersson or Brayden Point.

This is where goalies get very interesting. There are unproven goalies from good teams (Joseph Woll, Pyotr Kochetkov), there are timeshare concerns (Adin Hill, Connor Ingram), and rebound candidates (Filip Gustavsson, Darcy Kuemper). I had been hoping that Woll would fall to me, but was fine with Gustavsson. I will say that, as a Habs fan, I love Sam Montembeault but I don't think the team is at the level yet where we can hope for him to be a top-10 fantasy goalie. No problems taking him somewhere in the 20-25 range, because that seems like fine value, but I would rather take a chance on a goalie like Kochetkov.

Ok, let's round it out with the last six rounds:

Nazem Kadri going at 121^st overall is something that intrigues me. He is getting to the age – 34 years old in October – where we're waiting for the fall off, but a full season without Elias Lindholm and no high-level prospect centres waiting to take over is a good fantasy situation for Kadri. It would not be surprising to see him between 19-20 minutes a game and that level of ice time alone gives him a high floor. He is coming off a season with 29 goals, 75 points, 22 power play points, and 277 shots. It feels like the 11^th round is very good value.

Lukas Dostal being taken a couple rounds ahead of John Gibson is not something I had envisioned but probably should dhave. Not that I disagree with it, but this seems like it'll very much be a time-share situation. I also wonder if they won't be giving Gibson some extra starts just to juice his trade value a bit, but that isn't a bad thing, necessarily. If they do that, and Gibson is traded by the Trade Deadline, then Dostal is the go-to guy for the final six weeks of the season, and that's when this format has its fantasy playoffs. That might work out well later in the season.

The ADPs of the Vegas defencemen will be something to follow. Noah Hanifin went 147^th here with Shea Theodore 166^th and then Alex Pietrangelo in the final round. This isn't the type of format that heavily rewards a defenceman like Theodore, but it isn't as if Hanifin is a monster peripheral guy, either – he's never reached 130 blocks, 90 hits, or 200 shots. If Theodore can lock down the top PP role early, he absolutely has 70-point upside. He just needs that role, and to stay healthy. Going in the 13^th to 15^th-round range feels like a value pick to target, regardless of format.

Luke Hughes going as late as he did is also of interest. He might not be a big blocks/hits guy, but it's not hard to see him taking a big step in the shots department and he should be running New Jersey's power play all season. Even if he doesn't bring much in blocks/hits, that production elsewhere feels like a good value for the 162^nd pick overall.

Alright, that is my first draft in the books. I am happy, but not thrilled, with my team, though now I have an idea of who some of the later values might be that are very much worth targeting. I will check back in on ADPs in a few weeks to see if anything has changed before we hit training camps. It really isn't that far away, now.