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

'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, 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 left 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 attempt to account for players who had big changes in value because they missed time.

There are a few names on the list here that were not quite the slam dunks that some of the other positions had. Jason Robertson had a great rebound year, and Cole Caufield was incredible. Kirill Kaprizov is clearly the no-brainer, but like with our other positions 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.

It is great to see a 96-point pace from Jason Robertson. It isn't truly like consecutive 80-point paces were bad, but he flashed a 108-point pace season in 2022-23 and managers got excited. In 2025-26 Robertson saw increases across the board from 2024-25. He was up two and a half minutes of overall ice time, 20 percent of the team's power-play share, and back over 3.5 shots per game; the result was 45 goals and 96 points. He was certainly a valuable left wing and best of all it looks pretty legit.

Cole Caufield has increased his point production every season so far, hitting a career high in 2025-26 of 89 points. There is a lot to like about his production; 51 goals, over three shots per game, and over 18 minutes a night. He was clearly an incredible goal scorer this year. There are a couple of question marks with his performance given his underlying numbers, like his shooting percentage, but what a year for Caufield.

Alex Debrincat finished 2025-26 with his second highest career point pace, at 85 points. He saw increases across the board in his total time on ice, power-play share, and shot rates. It is not too much of a surprise to see him match his career high in goals. The good news is that nothing looks out of place, and his numbers are closer to mirroring his Chicago days that resulted in 78- and 88-point paces, rather than his recent Detroit numbers.

Morgan Geekie continues to defy expectations. A 69-point pace with 39 goals is certainly a career high. It is also his second straight season shooting over 20 percent. He got a career high 17:24 of ice time and shot just over two times per game. There are a few warning signs though, and really a tale of two seasons. In the 45 games after December 21st, he had huge stretches of games with no production and two short stints of elite production. In one, he went 17 games without a goal in March and April before his hattrick on April 7th. At the start of the season though he had 24 goals in 34 games, shooting almost 30 percent. The moral of the story is that he had periods of being elite, and periods of literally nothing. It is hard to know exactly where he is going to land going forward and continued access to David Pastrnak on the top line is going to be essential.

Mason Marchment also had a bit of a tale of two seasons, but with a very clear transition point: his trade out of Seattle. He spent 29 games with the Kraken, bouncing all over the lineup, and put up a grand total of 13 points. He then went to Columbus and saw consistent top line, top power-play deployment and immediately produced five points over his first five games and 32 points over 40 games. He and Charlie Coyle were dynamite free agent adds over the second half of the season.

On the flip side we have several players who significantly underperformed their draft position. 

Given Toronto's season it is no real surprise that we see a couple of wingers make this list. Matias Maccelli was the main addition that was supposed to fill Mitch Marner‘s shoes. No one was expecting 100 points, but he had shown flashes of good distribution in the past so matching him up with Auston Matthews certainly seemed like a good idea. Maccelli had one productive stretch in February and March where he put up 14 points in 15 games but otherwise was very much a dud with a 45-point pace and 1.3 shots per game.

Matthew Knies makes the list too, not because he was terrible, but more because of draft day expectations. He put up a career high 69-point pace, but with potential opportunity left by Marner, managers were clearly expecting more. He did step into a career high power-play share, and saw career high time on ice, but a big jump in production just did not happen. Toronto was just a bit of a mess though, so it is a little hard to blame Knies for not doing more or really blame Knies for the precipitous fall Toronto experienced.

It is a little surprising to see Andrew Mangiapane on the list here. He was barely drafted, and had not really been fantasy relevant for several seasons. I think it was probably folks taking the chance of better deployment (like playing with Connor McDavid or Leon Draisaitl), but it clearly did not happen. He finished the season in Chicago with a career low 21-point pace.

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

Jason Zucker was a great free agent pick up for managers. He had stretches where he was a little hot or a little cold but ended up with a second straight 60-point pace in Buffalo. He consistently played in the top six, on the top power-play, and put up two shots per game. Not elite numbers for sure, but a nice depth piece.

Zach Benson saw career highs across the board in his third season. He only played 65 games, but approached 16 minutes a night, almost two shots per game, and put up a 54-point pace. He bounced around the lineup a bit, occasionally seeing more than 50 percent of the team's power-play and especially at the beginning of the season, ice time in the high teens. The Sabres took a step forward this year and have a lot of potentially interesting young players. Benson is one but is certainly going to need strong deployment to continue his growth.

And finally, Bobby McMann also saw career highs, but ultimately only put up a 48-point pace across the season. It was his run after the trade to Seattle that really put him on the map though. In 18 games for the Kraken he put up 14 points, and 10 goals. That was some very valuable scoring down the stretch that managers likely found for free. His future is up in the air, and even if he returns to Seattle's first line, 10 goals over 18 games is likely unsustainable for him, so don't expect it over the full season.

That is all for this week.

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