This is week two of our MVP series. Today we will be covering right wings. As a reminder, here is a quick intro to the work from last week.

'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, including goals, assists, power-play points, shots, blocks and (unfortunately) plus/minus. 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, 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 right wing 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 account for players who had big changes in value because they missed time.

No surprise that Nikita Kucherov leads the way here. Martin Necas and Matt Boldy are certainly new additions though. We probably shouldn't be entirely surprised as Necas showed flashes of this after his trade to Colorado, and Boldy has a strong pedigree. Like with centers, 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.

Again, like with centers, even after accounting for draft position elite players still often provide more value than expected. We see that from Nikita Kucherov here. There isn't too much to say though, he has been and still is a superstar.

Cutter Gauthier was clearly less valuable overall, but just look where he was drafted – 228th overall. He ended the season with a 74-point pace, almost four shots per game, just over 17 minutes a night, and about 50 percent of the power play. The best part is the 41 goals scored. That kind of goal scoring is rare, and incredibly valuable. Everything looks really good under the hood for Gauthier too, and there is no reason to think he can't do this again next year, though I do imagine he won't be available at nearly the value of this season.

Jimmy Snuggerud was a force to end the season. He was barely drafted (most likely wasn't) and was available for most managers to snag out of free agency later in the season. He spent most of the second half of the season on the top line with Dylan Holloway and Robert Thomas, getting almost 18 minutes a night, 50 percent of the power play, and almost three shots per game. It resulted in 36 points over his final 31 games. It was a fantastic run for a guy with some pedigree coming into the season. It is a little hard to know exactly what to expect going forward but continuing that top deployment will be key.

As mentioned above Martin Necas showed us flashes of brilliance in 2024-25, both to start the season in Carolina, and then after his trade to Colorado. There was some speculation as to what Necas could be there, and whether he would repeat his almost 90-point pace, after a previous career high of 71; he surpassed all those numbers with a 105-point pace. It certainly helped that he played 21:30 on average and was a fixture on the top power play that saw 75 percent of the team's power-play time. Oh, and playing with Nathan MacKinnon at all strengths certainly helps. Some of his underlying numbers are higher than his career numbers, but he just finished his first season with Mackinnon, so it is a little hard to judge by those.

Nothing in Alex Tuch's numbers indicate he performed better than we should have expected. His shot rates, point pace, and general value were pretty similar. This seems like a function of people just undervaluing Tuch, and probably Buffalo in general at the draft table this season. It is a little concerning to see that his power-play time dipped down to 30 percent, a career low, but fortunately he hasn't historically seen a huge percent of his points on the man advantage.

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.

Kiefer Sherwood actually sustained his general production from 2024-25 in 2025-26 so the relative discrepancy between his ADP and value is not a dip in production. In this case I think it is pretty straight forward. His value is significantly higher in leagues that value hits, and the Yahoo calculation above does not. There is not much else to read into here I don't think.

Jonathan Marchessault on the other hand seems to be in something of a free fall. You have to go all the way back to 2015-16 to find a season where he put up worse numbers. There are a couple of numbers that indicate he got fewer points than he might have typically deserved, but not a ton and adding a few points to a 40-point pace isn't what managers who rostered him were hoping for. There is no guarantee that those past career numbers should even be the baseline anymore though. He is 35 years old now and has seen declining rates in both seasons in Nashville. It seems very improbable that he will be drafted in the top 200 again, if at all.

Sam Reinhart did not have a terrible season, just not the season folks were hoping for. Losing Aleksander Barkov for the entire season certainly did not help. Neither did the AHL roster the Panthers limped along with post Olympics. His shot rates and time on ice numbers look reasonable, as did his overall point pace, but the combination of missing some time, and missing some quality around him meant his underperformed expectations.

Jordan Kyrou wasn't really used like a valuable piece in St. Louis. He got below 16 minutes a night, was left off the top power-play, and was constantly the subject of trade rumors. It isn't much of a surprise then that his production fell off dropping to two and a half shots per game and a 52-point pace. He seems to have been passed over on the depth chart by the aforementioned Snuggerud and Holloway, which doesn't really bode well for his future return to a 70-point player.

Matvei Michkov couldn't build on his 65-point pace from his rookie season. Drafters were definitely hoping for a step up, and at an ADP of 85, fairly optimistic. His 52-point pace and sub 15 minutes a night certainly were not what folks had in mind. He is young so there is still plenty of room to grow, but he is going to have to shake the rumors of poor effort and mindset to really get the opportunity he needs to break out.

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

Not sure the career resurgence in Pittsburgh for Anthony Mantha was on anyone's bingo card for 2025-26, but a top six role and a 65-point pace is what we got. Mantha was rosterable for big chunks of the season along with Evgeni Malkin and in the second half of the season Egor Chinakov.

It is essentially the same story for Viktor Arvidsson. A rough stop over in Edmonton and no one was really considering Arvidsson for a bounce back season. He didn't have the strongest start, but like Pavel Zacha last week, finished very well scoring 24 points over his final 21 games. There are some red flags like with Zacha, but Arvidsson was certainly a free agent MVP down the stretch.

There isn't a ton to say about Jordan Eberle. He put up a 56-point pace marking the seventh straight season between 46 and 63 points. He got 18:30 a night so was certainly leaned on in Seattle, but there just was not enough scoring in Seattle for him to really make his mark. He is easy to forget but provided a low level of value most of the season.

That is all for this week.

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