We won't be covering the NHL playoffs blow by blow in this column, though we will touch on teams a bit as they get knocked out in each round. For this week, and for several upcoming weeks, we will be looking back over regular season data and find out which players provided the most, and best value at each position.

'Most Valuable' is a tricky term that is going to be completely dependent on the league specific context. For the purposes of this article, we are going to use standard Yahoo point scoring to calculate fantasy points for each player. The stats include goals, assists, power-play points, shots, blocks and (unfortunately) plus/minus. Obviously, this means there might be some general deviations to your league, based on your settings, but it is at least a good starting point. To grab all this data I am exporting the Multi-Category and Big Board Reports for the full season from Frozen Tools, and doing a bit of rearranging so I can have only the pertinent fields.

The table below contains the top four fantasy producers at the center position for the 25-26 season. We start with basic player information on the left (name, position, team) then get into some season stats (games played and Yahoo fantasy points per game). The fantasy points column is using points per game to attempt to consider players who had big changes in value because they missed time.

What a season for Macklin Celebrini. He has arrived in a superstar way quicker than projected. Outside of him, though, this is not a surprising list. These were the top projected centers in drafts and here they are. So, In addition to fantasy points I have also pulled average draft position data (ADP). These ADPs are based on preseason drafts so don't take into account leagues and drafts that started part way through the season. The idea here is that if we compare the draft position to the end of year fantasy points for all players, we can get an equation that lets us say: 'On average a player with X draft position would be expected to get Y fantasy points.' Once we have that we can compare that expected number to the player's actual number and see who performed the best based on their draft position. The ADP data below is compiled from Yahoo drafts for the 2025-26 season.

Our next table contains the players who provided the most value once we account for where they were drafted. I have included their ADP data, their total fantasy points and the difference from the expected number given their draft position.

Like above, we have a few of the elite names. Even at their draft position, Nathan Mackinnon and Connor McDavid still provided more value than expected. This is why they are consistently drafted first. There isn't too much to say here though, they were and still are superstars.

Nick Schmaltz on the other hand was a significant gold mine for managers who drafted him very late (or even grabbed him out of free agency). As is his reputation, he wasn't incredibly consistent, but did start the season with a bang, putting up 17 points over the first 11 games. Overall, he ended with a very solid 74-point pace, career high shot rates and time on ice, on the top line and top power play in Utah. His team shooting percentage was a little high, and some of the production might have been a mirage, but there is no denying that he was found money for a lot of managers through the season.

I am not sure what is left to say about Celebrini. The guy is a superstar, posting 115 points in his second season. Most preseason takes I saw projected some improvement for sure, but maybe to the 90-point level. If you took a chance on him at the draft table, you were clearly rewarded.

Trevor Zegras was likely not even drafted in most leagues. He had an ADP of 296, which is beyond most standard leagues. Like with Schmaltz he was not always the most consistent but definitely had a very nice rebound to 67 points, over two shots per game, and the most time on ice he has seen for several seasons. With the addition of Zegras and some of the young talent in Philadelphia, that Flyers lineup is suddenly pretty interesting and certainly gives Zegras some more depth to play with going forward.

Honorable mentions go to Leo Carlsson and Nick Suzuki who were just outside the top five.

Now we move on to the least valuable. These guys all underperformed their draft slot by significant margins. Given we are looking at total value here, I am putting a little bit of a games played cap here, so we don't solely look at guys who just missed a lot of time. For reference though the list would include guys like Pierre-Luc Dubois and Tyler Seguin. Still, everyone on this list missed some games, which does account for at least some of their lost value.

J.T. Miller saw his lowest scoring season (a 64-point pace) since the 2018-19 season. He also maintained his second season in a row of around two shots per game (down from his previous years). Miller is more valuable in leagues that also count faceoff wins and hits (which could account for some of his higher ADP), but still he clearly underperformed expectations in 2025-26. The slightly positive news is a lot of his underlying numbers indicate he maybe deserved a little better. The bad news is that it is really unclear what the Rangers are doing and their rebuild essentially only resulted in shipping out their best player and leaving the rest so far.

Brayden Point also disappointed with basically a career low point pace in 2025-26. While with Miller there were some underlying numbers that might give some reason for optimism going forward, Point's situation looks a little different. He dropped shot rates, and time on ice, but at five on five his team scored at a significantly higher rate than expected with Point on the ice. Those numbers indicate he got some good luck and still performed below expectations. The saving grace here is on the power play. Point has historically been a power-play merchant by averaging 17 PP goals and 32 PP points every 82 games across the prior three seasons. That power-play scoring has helped him maintain a shooting percentage exceeding 21% the three prior campaigns. In 2025-26 he had a career low shooting percentage, career low power-play production, and only six power-play goals. We might expect to see some of that bounce back next season, but other players seemed to do just fine on the power play, and I do wonder if the scoring when Darren Raddysh is on the top unit is running through some different players than previously.

Ok Sean Kuraly is a bit of a question mark here. Mostly in that his ADP indicates he was drafted consistently. He certainly was not in my leagues. Nothing looks particularly out of place for him, and my only hypothesis is that he was only drafted in leagues that reward hits or faceoffs so that his ADP reflects those leagues.

Matt Duchene disappointed mostly because of games played. He put up a 65-point pace, which is down from his 89-point pace from 2024-25, but very consistent with his prior two seasons. His time on ice and shot rates were a little down, but nothing else stands out too much.

Elias Pettersson makes this list for the second season in a row. In 2024-25 he had a rough season, in fact his worst point pace to date. In 2025-26 were managers hoping for a bounceback? They didn't get it. He repeated with a 57-point pace similar time on ice numbers and shot rates. He maybe deserved slightly better, but at this point he needs to show he can be a productive member of your roster again and should not be the 67th player drafted.

Finally, I will wrap the column with a couple of players who provided the most value but generally weren't drafted.

Ryan O'Reilly bounced back to a 75-point pace in 2025-26. The entire Nashville roster had an odd season, but O'Reilly managed to be rosterable for big chunks of it. He saw over 20 minutes of average time on ice for the first time since 2020-21 and was more involved in the goals scored while he was on the ice. He mostly played with Filip Forsberg both at even strength and on the power play, which is certainly where you want to be in Nashville. Everything looks pretty reasonable under the hood so as long as Nashville can maintain its ability to score goals (unlike in 2024-25), O'Reilly should continue to see some fantasy value.

Pavel Zacha managed to hit a home run for managers at the end of the season. Overall, he actually saw less time per game than in previous seasons, did not shoot more than usual, and was not necessarily more involved in goals scored while he was on the ice. What he did, though, was shoot over 20% and put up 24 points over his final 20 games of the season during the late stretch and playoff runs for managers. That alone probably made him an MVP for many. It really isn't clear that his 68-point pace (a career high) is remotely repeatable, but if you had him for the playoffs that really doesn't matter to you at the moment.

That is all for this week.

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