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In my Ramblings last week, I discussed some early average draft position (ADP) data from Underdog Fantasy. The run a season-long best ball league every year called the Best Puck Classic, and they start their leagues in July, so it gives us a head start on where some players are being valued. We have already gone over centres, wingers, and defencemen. We will finish up with goalies.

For the uninitiated, best ball leagues are draft-and-hold formats that have no trades, waivers, or free agency; the team you draft is the one you have all year. The Best Puck Classic can have up to 15 000 entries and be comprised of up to 1250 individual 12-team leagues. You are put into a 12-team league, draft 18 players, and your top scorers among centres (x2), wingers (x3), defencemen (x1), flex (one more from C/W/D), and goalie (x1) counts each week towards your final total. After 18 weeks, the top three rosters from each 12-team league advances to a two-week fantasy playoff, then there is another cutdown after those two weeks, and so on until a winner is determined.

This is their points system:

• Goals – 6
• Assists – 4
• Power-Play Points – 0.5
• Shots – 1
• Hits – 0.5
• Blocks – 1
• Goalie Win – 6
• Goalie Save – 0.6
• Goalie Goal Against – (-3)

Because you count three wingers each week, your third winger is more valuable than your third defenceman. The same can be said for goalies, but with injuries and split-start situations, you will probably need all your goalies unless you have a netminder who gets a ton of starts and plays reasonably well all year, like Karel Vejmelka last season. It also makes those split-start situations a bit of a headache and makes you wonder when to take both.

Either way, here are some early ADPs that are sticking out to me.

Connor Hellebuyck (Winnipeg Jets)

The first goalie off the board is Andrei Vasilevskiy, which isn't much of a surprise. It did surprise me to see Hellebuyck as the second goalie off the board:

The funny thing is that even with a very poor year from Hellebuyck last season, he is still tied for the league lead in wins over the last three years (107, with Vasilevskiy) and leads in save percentage. He was so good for so long that even a bad year still has him as arguably the top goalie in the league, stats-wise, over the last three seasons.

For me, a big part of this is what we think of the blue line after Josh Morrissey. Dylan Samberg grew into an excellent rearguard then had a down season marred by injury. There was a late-season emergence from Elias Salomonsson, and they signed Mario Ferraro in free agency. It wouldn't take much to convince me that, if healthy, this defence group is much improved from last year, particularly in the non-Morrissey minutes. That matters a lot for Hellebuyck. I still have concerns about their depth scoring, which will hurt his win total, but my guess is we see his save percentage and goals against average rebound in a big way. Does it make him a top-2 goalie? Of that, I am much less sure.

Jakub Dobes (Montreal Canadiens)

After taking the starting goalie reigns post-Olympic break and holding onto it through the playoffs, Dobeš is now going as a top-10 goalie off the board:

What is curious is that at this time last year, Samuel Montembeault was going somewhere between the 11^th and 15^th goalie in this tournament. While Montembeault had a horrific season, he had a three-year track record of having a lot of success playing behind a poor defensive team. As things stand, Dobeš has fewer regular season career starts (57) than Montembeault made in 2024-25 alone (60). Per Evolving Hockey, Montreal finished 23^rd by expected goals against at 5-on-5 last season and they gave up the eighth-most power plays to the opponent. They were better defensively, but still far from good, let alone great, and as things stand, they still technically have three goalies on the roster (though Montembeault's status is up in the air and Jacob Fowler can still be sent to the AHL).

All I'm saying is there are some red flags here and Montreal plays in the toughest division in the toughest conference. Drafting him this high would mean certainty that he's a great individual goalie who will make 55 starts on a very good team and that is a high bar to clear.

Scott Wedgewood and Mackenzie Blackwood (Colorado Avalanche)

The ADP difference between the two Colorado goalies stuck out to me:

Last year in this format, Wedgewood led the league in FPTS per game, but he only made 43 starts, so he finished 10^th by total FPTS. Blackwood finished 22^nd by FPTS per game and landed 28^th by total FPTS. To me, it seems fine to take Blackwood where he's going, but to take Wedgewood that high would require one of three things to be true:

1. He becomes a real number-1 goalie, earning over 50 starts.
2. He replicates last season, which was by far the best of his career.
3. The person drafting Wedgewood also takes Blackwood a few rounds later.

To me, the most reliable of those three would be just drafting the Colorado tandem and letting the chips fall where they may. This just smacks of 'Darcy Kuemper in 2025-26', even if Colorado is a much better team than the Los Angeles Kings.

Jet Greaves (Columbus Blue Jackets)

My favourite late-round goalie last season is no longer a late-round goalie, but he's still not being drafted as a top-12 goalie:

In this format last season, Greaves finished 12^th by FPTS per game among goalies and sixth by total FPTS. In other words, he's basically being drafted as if he'll replicate his 2025-26 campaign, and considering his performance was basically in line (if even a little worse) than what he had done in his brief career to that point, it seems like a fair price.

What concerns me is Head Coach Rick Bowness. After he was hired, he gave a handful of more starts to Elvis Merzlikins, and while Greaves was still the starter, over the course of a full season it would be the difference between making 50 or 55 starts. With the same win/save/GAA totals, it's enough to drop him from the 6^th overall goalie to 12^th. That would still make his ADP palatable, but losing any more starts than that, or if his play regresses in any way, would make this an overpayment. I believe Greaves is a very good goalie, but whether he makes 48 starts or 56 starts matters, and I'm not sure which we get. 

Brandon Bussi and Pyotr Kochetkov (Carolina Hurricanes)

Here we have another goaltending tandem but unlike Colorado, these two are nowhere close to similar by ADP:

Here is a fun fact: no Carolina goalie in any of the last four seasons has made 50 starts. In that span, only Kochetkov has made at least 40 (both 2023-24 and 2024-25), while Bussi had 39 last year. Bussi was the one that came in during the Stanley Cup Final and sealed Carolina's Cup win, but this is not a team that typically gives one goalie a massive start total. In this format last year, no goalie started 41 or fewer games and finished inside the top-20 by total FPTS.

Kochetkov is only 27 years old and was fine-to-good for his entire career before an injured 2025-26 season. To me, this is not a situation where Bussi steps in and makes 50-55 starts right away. It could happen, especially if Kochetkov starts slowly, but I imagine this is a case where one goalie makes, say, 45 starts and the other makes 35 (give or take a couple for either number). This is a great tandem situation to draft, but if I can only take one, it's easily Kochetkov.

Spencer Knight (Chicago Blackhawks)

By Evolving Hockey's Goals Saved Above Expected last season, Knight finished sixth among all goalies. He was great, especially in the first half, and he finished 14^th by total FPTS and 25^th by FPTS per game. So, keep in mind there's an argument that Knight was a fringe top-5 goalie in real life performance-wise, but was much worse in fantasy, and now consider this ADP:

Working in Knight's favour is that he's locked in as the starting goalie; barring injury or a terrible performance, he'll easily make 50 starts. That kind of volume is a difference-maker, as we saw with his performance last year. In that sense, I think this ADP is fine. And, honestly, there aren't many goalies being drafted outside the top-20 that we can rely on for 50-55 starts. Chicago may be a bad team again, but as long as they're status quo from last year, rather than a step back, Knight can be a top-20 goalie by total FPTS, so paying this price for him seems fine. Not great, but not bad – just fine.

Joel Hofer (St. Louis Blues)

At a certain point, how much is enough. Last year, Hofer had a .910 save percentage compared to Jordan Binnington's .873. The year before, it was .904 to .900. Even still, Hofer made just 43 starts last year to Binnington's 39, which is what makes this ADP for Hofer interesting:

In 2025-26, Hofer finished 16^th by total FPTS among goalies and ninth by FPTS per game. Knowing that, taking him as the 24^th goalie off the board seems like a pretty good profit situation. This is also not an Olympic year and Binnington is in the final season of his contract. If it is the case where Hofer outperforms Binnington again, there is no plausible reason for the former to not run away with the starting gig with the latter getting spot starts. The Blues are primed for a rebound in a weak Western Conference, and all this makes Hofer one of the goalies going outside the top-20 that late-round goalie drafters should consider.