The Utah Mammoth matched the offer-sheet to which the New Jersey Devils signed centre Barrett Hayton. A matched offer sheet also precludes a trade of Hayton, so he will be around the Mammoth for at least one more full season.

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The Chicago Blackhawks announced that Connor Bedard had shoulder surgery and he is expected to be out about four months. Judging by the video of the injury last week (was it last week? The summer makes me lose all sense of time), it was the shoulder opposite the one he hurt last season, so that it's not a recurring problem is a sliver of good news. All the same, it looks like he'll miss at least the first month of the season, given that the regular season is starting at the end of September. Not great news for the Bowen Byram enthusiasts among us.

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Catching players whose fantasy value is on the upswing is important when draft season rolls around. There are instances where a player has inflated value because of some good luck, but fantasy value tends to stay consistent from one season to the next. There are always exceptions, but if we see a player with rising value, we should tend to believe the improvement and then look to discredit it, rather than dismissing the improvement it then looking for reasons to believe.

Today, we'll look at some forwards whose fantasy value increased in 2025-26 compared to 2024-25 on a 60-minute basis, then we'll try to figure out if there's a reason to discount their season. We are going to use goals, assists, power-play points (PPP), shots, hits, blocks, penalty minutes (PIM), and face-off wins (FOW) as our fantasy categories, unless otherwise indicated. These values are all relative to replacement-level production (roughly the value of a top waiver wire option in a 14-team league where 13 forwards are rostered on each team) and among forwards only.

Stats for evaluation courtesy of Evolving Hockey or Natural Stat Trick. We are only including players who played at least 41 games in each of the last two seasons, and the positional designations are from Yahoo.

Trevor Zegras (Philadelphia Flyers – C)

There were reasons to believe that Zegras would be better in Philadelphia than his last couple of years with the Anaheim Ducks, and he rewarded those who kept the faith with a big rebound effort. Of the eight fantasy stats we're evaluating, he increased his value in five of them:

It is notable that of the three categories Zegras saw a decline in value, the largest belonged to face-off wins. That means in fantasy leagues where face-off wins aren't counted, his improvement was even larger.

Is there cause for concern? Not as it relates to the underlying indicators:

• Zegras' individual points percentage, or the rate he garnered a point when the Flyers scored a goal with him on the ice, was under 69%. It was his lowest rate of any season where he's played at least 50 games, so he didn't figure in on a higher-than-expected share of the goals.
• The Flyers shot 11.6% with him on the ice at 5-on-5, which was his highest rate of the four years where he managed at least 50 appearances. That might be a cause for concern, but that wasn't even a top-50 rate among all forwards. Additionally, he registered a point on 64.4% of 5-on-5 goals against a three-year average of 75.2%. If the team had shot 10% with him on the ice, but he registers a point on 75% of the goals with him on the ice, he posts 38 points at 5-on-5, the same number he actually posted. In other words, negative regression in one area could easily be washed out by positive regression in another.
• He did shoot 15.6% individually, a career-best rate. However, if he shot 12.5%, he still would have a 60-minute increase in fantasy value for his goals scored, and instead of having the 12^th-largest overall fantasy value increase, he has the 19^th-largest. Even with a normal shooting percentage, he still would be one of our biggest risers.

Put it all together and there should be optimism that Zegras can maintain roughly this level of fantasy production. If the Flyers end up with Leo Carlsson, maybe Zegras loses some ice time, but then again, maybe he doesn't, and if ends up as Carlsson's winger? I think fantasy managers would take that.   

Cody Glass (New Jersey Devils – C)

Across the eight fantasy categories we're using, Glass saw an increase in six of them, though a big chunk of his rise came via goals and penalty minutes:

We will start with the goals, because he did shoot 18.1% against a three-year average of 8.6% and career rate of 8.9%. If we cut his 2025-26 goals-scoring rate in half, he loses 37% of his fantasy value increase. In leagues without face-off wins, that decrease is 56%. Even with his goal-scoring cut in half, he would have still had a decent increase in non-FOW leagues and sizeable increase in leagues counting FOWs, but that is something worth noting out of the gate.

As for the PIMs, well, his rate increased a lot. He had both a 5-minute major and 10-minute misconduct in 2025-26, the first time in his career he's registered either. If we take those out from his season total, his fantasy value from PIMs still increases a lot compared to the season before, but the decline from what he actually produced would be nearly as large as the decline if his goal-scoring rate was cut in half.

Therein lay the problem. In leagues without FOWs, with a normal (for him) shooting percentage and without those major penalties, he actually loses value compared to 2024-25. In leagues with FOWs, his fantasy improvement is cut in half. I think he can be a solid depth multi-cat option in leagues with face-offs, especially with growth from Arseny Gritsyuk and the addition of Evan Rodrigues, but in leagues without FOWs, there is cause for reticence.

Josh Doan (Buffalo Sabres – LW/RW)

This isn't much of a surprise to fantasy managers, but Doan was considerably better on a 60-minute basis in 2025-26 than he was back in 2024-25:

What is important is that there were increases both large and small in six of the eight categories, and the only sizeable drop was in FOWs. So, in leagues without FOWs, Doan's fantasy value improvement is even bigger – he goes from a top-25 increase to a top-10 increase. As always, the settings of your fantasy league matter a lot.

There is a bit of bad news here. Alex Tuch being traded to Washington should open a lot of even-strength minutes, which is good for Doan. The problem is that when the team is healthy, they could very well run a tandem of Josh Norris and Tage Thompson on the top line, and Thompson would effectively take the ice time left behind by Tuch. (That also assumes a healthy year from Norris, which is not reliable.) Additionally, we all saw how well Zach Benson played in the postseason, and I do think he has the highest upside of any Sabres winger. In reality, Thompson and Benson could very well be 'wingers' ahead of Doan on the depth chart, and being no higher than the #3 winger on most teams brings precarious fantasy value in non-deep leagues.

This could be a situation where two things are true:

• Doan's improvements are genuine and not only was he better last year than the year before, but he'll be even better in 2026-27.
• The Sabres don't give heavy minutes to their forwards, as the very top will be around 19:30 per game and their secondary scorers are between 15:30 and 17:30.

I am a believer in Doan's talent and believe his best seasons can make him a top-100 fantasy player. I also believe that he has an uncertain situation and improvements could be negated by a modest role.

William Eklund (Ottawa Senators – LW)

This is a fun one because Eklund skated nearly half the 5-on-5 TOI next to Macklin Celebrini in 2025-26 (22.5%) that he had the year before (41%), and yet he increased his fantasy value across six of the eight categories we're reviewing:

Here we removed face-off wins, but that value was consistent from the year before, so it wouldn't matter much. It is just to highlight what he brings as a winger.

What sticks out for me is the power-play production. He had 16 PPPs in each of the last three seasons, averaging just under 17 every 82 games. Across the last three seasons, Brady Tkachuk – the guy Eklund is ostensibly replacing – averaged 25 PPPs every 82 games. Had Eklund posted 25 PPPs last season, he would have had the largest fantasy value increase of the 337 forwards in our sample. He crested the 200-game plateau last year, turns 24 years old in October, and should ride shotgun with Tim Stutzle both at 5-on-5 and on the power play. Giddy up.   

Bobby McMann (Seattle Kraken – C/LW)

This is a bit of a weird player because he finds himself in a bad offensive environment, but he saw a massive role increase after the trade to Seattle, adding 2:39 per game. Despite the career-high rate in ice time, his 60-minute fantasy value rates also increased in six of the eight categories:

Again, this is without face-off wins to highlight his value as a winger (though it's funny that Yahoo has him as centre-eligible despite 48 career face-offs in 218 games).  

What is key here is the shot rate. In 60 games with the Toronto Maple Leafs last season, he managed 7.6 shots per 60 minutes at 5-on-5. In his 18 games with the Kraken, that leapt to 10.2 shots per 60 minutes, going roughly from Rickard Rakell-levels of shooting to Auston Matthews-levels of shooting. It is doubtful McMann stays that high, but if we split the difference in his shot rate at all strengths between Seattle and Toronto, he lands in Filip Forsberg/Pavel Dorofeyev territory. At ~18 minutes a game, we're looking at somewhere between 230-250 shots on goal. That is where the real fantasy value for McMann can come from, it's just a matter of Seattle giving him those minutes.

Dmitri Voronkov (Columbus Blue Jackets – LW)

I just want to quickly mention Voronkov because back in May, I wrote about some underlying improvements he made this season. That applies to his fantasy value, too, though it might be hard to tell. On a 60-minute basis and excluding FOWs, he increased his fantasy value in six of the other seven categories:

Managers can be forgiven for not assuming such a large improvement given his role was completely nuked under Head Coach Rick Bowness (I'm surprised he hasn't been traded but that's neither here nor there), and that presents our dilemma. Here is a player who saw improvements both in some underlying processes that lead to production, as well as just his 60-minute rates of fantasy output. However, if his new coach insists on either healthy scratching him or playing him 10 minutes a game, he could be 2009-era Sidney Crosby and it wouldn't really matter.