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Hey everyone, obviously this isn't Alex! I am covering for him today, and I want to take these Ramblings to look at some early average draft positions (ADP). We have drafts being done across several sites but I am going to look at ADPs on FanTrax and Underdog Fantasy. The former includes all leagues from H2H to roto, points to multi-cat, so it's a varied array of league formats, while the latter is a draft-only points league factoring goals, assists, power-play points, shots, blocks, and hits. These are just some early outlines, but I want to look at some ADPs that are standing out to me as either too low or too high at first glance. I am going to include only their relative ranking at their position, rather than overall ADP, because the differences in the two sites render those overall ADPs rather meaningless. So, the C10 is the 10^th centre, the D15 is the 15^th defenceman, and so on.

Data from Evolving Hockey and Frozen Tools, unless otherwise indicated.

Sidney Crosby (Pittsburgh Penguins)

Underdog ADP: C9

FanTrax ADP: C7

Last season, Crosby finished between the 6^th and 10^th fantasy centre in most fantasy formats (lower in leagues with plus/minus). He saw a sizeable drop in shots per game, his highest even strength on-ice shooting percentage in a season with at least 41 games since the 2013 lockout, and a four-year high in goal participation. That is a lot of regression flags for a guy being drafted around where he ended up last year.

Crosby has been remarkably consistent in these late stages of his career, and that is a factor here. He has three straight seasons of at least 80 games, 30 goals, 50 assists, and 200 shots. Crosby, Mikko Rantanen, and David Pastrnak are the only three players to reach each of those marks in each of the last three years (from Hockey Reference):

Because of that consistency, I don't have a huge problem with taking Crosby somewhere around the 30^th pick. The issue I have is I don't think he has top-10 upside anymore, so I think it makes more sense to grab a top player at another position and wait a couple of rounds for someone like J.T. Miller or Tim Stutzle (assuming hits are a category).

Matvei Michkov (Philadelphia Flyers)

Underdog ADP: W25

FanTrax ADP: W42

Are we doing this again? Last year, I heartily scoffed at Michkov going easily inside the top-100 picks, and often enough inside the top-75, and didn't draft him once on 18 teams. That worked out well.  

This is a case that depends on where you're drafting. Taking Michkov as the ~40^th winger on the board, as he's going on FanTrax, seems fine to me. Depending on league settings and all that, he probably finished somewhere in the 35-45 range last year, so splitting the difference is perfectly acceptable.

I do worry that there will be steam on his ADP as the fantasy draft season wears on, and he starts going in the 25-30 range on FanTrax and beyond (like has happened on Underdog). Let's do a thought experiment: assume that Michkov is going as the 50^th pick and that six goalies and five defencemen will finish as top-50 fantasy players this season. That means Michkov would need to be inside the top-40 forwards to pay off an ADP of 50^th overall. Using the 10 forwards who finished 35^th-44^th last season with Underdog scoring (goals = 6, assists = 4, all shots and blocks = 1, all hits and power-play points = 0.5), here is their average 82-game output between them, and what Michkov's 82-game paces were:

To be an average forward at his current draft position, Michkov needs to add four goals, nine assists, and nine power-play points while multiplying his blocks by 2.5 and his hits by 3.0. Assuming relatively consistent hits and blocks to what he did last year, he would need to add something like four extra goals and six extra assists on top of what he already needs to do.

Long story short: because of the lack of hits and blocks, Michkov absolutely needs a 30-goal, point-per-game season to pay off an ADP of around 50^th overall. That is just to pay off the ADP. If you want even a modest profit from him as a 50^th-ish pick, he probably needs to be what Jake Guentzel was last year, which is pacing to be a 40-40 player with over 25 PPPs and around 225 shots. Michkov is a tremendous talent and a budding star, but the team around him is not quite there yet.

Mathew Barzal (New York Islanders)

Underdog ADP: W44

FanTrax ADP: C25, W49

This is an interesting one to me. I saw Barzal often go as a top-60 pick last summer/fall, which concerned me because that was banking on his huge jump in shot rate holding (his 3.0 shots per game in 2023-24 exceeded his prior career high by a half-shot per game). While his shots-per-game fell in the 30 games he did play in 2024-25, his rate of shot attempts jumped from 15.4 to 16.8. The entire league missed the net more often in 2024-25, Barzal included, but the notable thing here is his shot attempt rates didn't regress to the lower rates of the earlier portions of his career – they improved.

At these improved shot rates, Barzal can easily cross the 200-shot threshold in a full-ish season. Even with his normally-low shooting percentages, that puts 20 goals well within range. He has also averaged 53 assists every 82 games over the last three years. Barzal has a real shot at being a 20-goal, 70-point, 200-shot forward, and that's why his ADP dropping like a stone is very interesting to me.

I get the trepidation because of Barzal missing over half the season last year and the Islanders probably not being very good offensively. At the same time, he missed a total of 10 games in the first five years of his career and is just one year removed from an 80-game season. If he's going outside the top 100 picks, he basically just needs to be what Jared McCann was last year, which is around 22 goals, 39 assists, 202 shots, 16 power-play points, and 97 total hits+blocks. Barzal's last three years have seen him average 21 goals, 53 assists, 223 shots, 23 power-play points, and 104 hits+blocks every 82 games. An ADP somewhere between the 90^th and 110^th pick overall seems like a good buying opportunity.

Adam Fox (New York Rangers)

Underdog ADP: D12

FanTrax ADP: D12

Honestly, this is another one that I both understand and also find easy to ignore; it feels like the Sidney Crosby pick we talked about earlier. I understand taking Fox as the 12^th defenceman off the board because there's some security here. It is a reasonable to say that last year (10 goals, 51 assists, 18 PPPs in 74 games) was a down year for him and that he'll be better in 2025-26.

Here’s the thing: What's the real upside here? If we take Fox's 82-game averages over the last three years, it works out to about 14 goals, 60 assists, 155 shots, 29 PPPs, 128 blocks, and 39 hits every 82 games. By Underdog scoring, that would have been the 12^th defenceman by fantasy points per game last season. If he rebounds, maybe he can be roughly the 10^th defenceman by fantasy points per game? In other multi-cat formats, he brings very little in hits and shots, so there are holes in his game.

And what if things get worse? I don't understand taking Fox as the 12^th defenceman off the board when you can probably draft Moritz Seider a round higher or wait a few rounds and grab someone like Mikhail Sergachev or Seth Jones. Much like Crosby, it isn't as if I'm particularly low on Fox, or that his value is awful, I just think there are better buying opportunities ahead and behind them both, so I don't understand drafting either at their current ADPs.

Lukas Dostal (Anaheim Ducks)

Underdog ADP: G20

FanTrax ADP: G16

Goals Saved Above Expected (GSAx) is a measure that tries to quantify the shot quality faced by a goalie. Here is the list of goalies since the 2013 lockout who've faced at least 3000 shots before their age-25 season and managed one GSAx on every 200 shots faced:

It wouldn't be long before John Gibson had some tough years, but he did have a great 2018-19 season following this stretch. We know what Juuse Saros has largely done up until 2024-25 while Jake Oettinger is coming off a great regular season. In other words, this seems to be a pretty good list for Dostál to find himself on.

The X-factor, of course, is the team around him. It has been years since Anaheim has been even an average defensive team. Their blue line is a mix of veterans on the downside of their career and young guys who are a ways from their prime (perhaps Jackson LaCombe excepted). I'm not sure that Dostál will have a great defensive environment around him, but being the 20^th goalie off the board is intriguing. After that, we're getting into the split start situations (Toronto and Carolina), starters on bad teams (Chicago, San Jose) or guys with uncertain situations (Karel Vejmelka, Stuart Skinner, and Joey Daccord). There aren't a lot of great bets to make there, so the idea of taking Dostál, who is locked in on as the starter and looks to be one of the better goalies of the future on a team that is improving, doesn't seem so bad.