Tristan Luneau is playing 25 minutes a night on the Anaheim Ducks’ top pair. That’s more than seven more than my prospect model expected from a rookie with his draft slot and junior numbers, and the Ducks just signed him to a six-year extension after only 14 NHL games. ESPN has him on 7% of rosters after three games. Luneau is on the second power-play unit and has one shot, so in points leagues this is a minutes bet for now. But a team doesn’t hand a rookie 25 minutes unless they trust him.

Tyson Foerster is the other kind of add. His TOI increased less than a minute, but he’s on the Philadelphia Flyers’ first power-play unit with 60% of their power-play time, and last season he scored 6.3 fantasy points per game, more than any of the 22 names on last week’s boards. That was only 29 games, with a lot of goals on few shots, and his two full seasons before that were lower. The Flyers are also getting outshot when he’s on the ice. The power-play job is the reason to add him. Only 4% of ESPN leagues have him.

Last week I said to look again after four games, because that’s when ice time and power-play share earn about half the weight against last season. So I did. And before I put out another board, I wanted to know if this kind of board actually works, so I tested it on the last 10 seasons. Part of it held up, and part of it didn’t, and the part that didn’t is why there’s a second column on the board this week.

How last week’s names did

Ten of last week’s 12 grab-now jobs held their minutes. Josh Doan dropped down the lineup and Charlie Coyle‘s extra ice time is gone. The power play is shakier. Five of the 10 new PP1 guys still have at least half of their team’s power play. Shea Theodore and Igor Chernyshov are just under it at 48 and 49%, Hampus Lindholm and Bobby McMann slipped further, and Philip Broberg is off the power play almost completely.

The market noticed some of it. Vasily Podkolzin went from 42% rostered to 75. Tommy Novak went from 2% to 22, and he has five points in four games.

What I tested

I took every returning skater from 2016-17 through 2025-26, found the ones whose ice time jumped by at least 1:30 over their first four games, and followed them through the rest of the season. Then I simulated drafts for 8-, 10- and 12-team Yahoo leagues, two hundred per season, so I’d have a fair read on who was sitting on the wire. I wrote down what would count as a pass before I looked at any results.

The minutes stick, mostly. When no regular at his position was missing and the coach just gave a guy more ice time, the typical one kept about 59% of the jump through games 21 to 40. When a regular at his position was missing early, he kept 46%. Those jobs fade faster, mostly because the regular comes back.

The return costs a chunk, but not the whole job. Before the missing teammate came back, these players were holding about 79% of their jump. In the 10 games after he returned, that fell to 43%. Players with no absence behind them held about 60-65% over the first two months. So, expect to lose a good piece of the extra minutes when the regular returns, but more than 4/10 kept at least half of their jump.

The pickups beat what else is on the wire. In a 10-team league, players picked this way scored about 1.1 more fantasy points per game over the rest of the season than waiver players who were just as good the year before. That held in 8- and 12-team leagues too. But only about 1/6 of them scored like a starter in a 10-team league. Most of these guys are bench adds and deep-league adds, and I’m going to sell them that way.

Shots beat the board. This is the one I didn’t expect. If you’d just picked up the waiver guys with the most shots in their first four games, you’d have done better, about 6.0 fantasy points per game over the rest of the season to the board’s 5.2. Points in the first four games did better too. The reason is how the board was sorting. It ranked by the gain, so it found guys who started low and jumped the most, and those guys did improve more than anybody. The shot leaders were just better players to start with. When I went back and sorted the same bigger-job players by where they should end up, which is last season’s rate plus the gain they keep, those picks beat the shot leaders. Sorting every waiver player by last season’s rate alone did about as well or better. So start from how good a player already was, then look at the role. I added that check after I saw the result, so treat it as a lean. The second column follows that idea, with players who were already good and got a small bump.

Power-play share adds its own value. Holding the ice time fixed, a bigger slice of the power play still added power-play points over the rest of the season. In total fantasy points, a typical jump in power-play share was worth about as much as a typical jump in minutes.

Grab now: the risers

To make the board, a player has to be in the top six, the top four or on PP1 on today’s chart, his ice time through 2-5 games has to back it up, and he has to be on fewer than 80% of ESPN rosters. In the simulated Yahoo drafts nearly every riser went undrafted almost every time. Alexis Lafreniere was the exception, picked in about four of every ten 12-team drafts. So, they’re wire players, and the ESPN number tells you how many people already went and got him.

Figure 1

Denton Mateychuk is still at the top, with 27.8 minutes a night for the Columbus Blue Jackets. But Damon Severson is expected back Friday against Pittsburgh, so that number is about to come down. Ivan Provorov is still week-to-week, and Dante Fabbro is out until late October, so Mateychuk keeps a real job. Just not a 27-minute job.

Jack Quinn is the one I like most from the top group. Quinn is at 19.9 minutes for the Buffalo Sabres with 64% of their power play, and he’s taking nine shots per 60 minutes. Buffalo is also getting about two-thirds of the 5-on-5 shot attempts while he’s on the ice. Jason Zucker is out indefinitely, so there’s no end date on that door yet. He’s on 23% of rosters. Zach Benson is on that same unit at 11%, and his on-ice numbers are even better.

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Roman Kantserov is the warning sign. The minutes are there, 18.9 a night on Chicago’s second line and PP1 with Connor Bedard out until about early November. But he has no points in five games, the Blackhawks are getting outshot when he’s out there, and his ownership dropped from 14% to 7. I’d still hold him in deep leagues because the job is real. Just know the minutes haven’t turned into anything yet.

Ben Kindel has 60% of Pittsburgh’s power play and four points in three games, at 18% rostered. Morgan Frost is on Calgary’s top line with 81% of their power play, and only 5% of leagues have him. Cole Perfetti has six points and the first line in Winnipeg. Viktor Arvidsson is on Detroit’s top line and PP1 with Marco Kasper and Mason Appleton week-to-week, and his projected rate is the highest of the risers. He’s at 14% rostered.

Egor Chinakhov is the one that’s already cooling off. Bryan Rust came back Oct. 7 and Chinakhov is on the second power-play unit now.

Best level: the second column

These are players whose role grew a little, from a much higher starting point. The bar is small, but where they end up is higher than most of the risers.

Robert Thomas, Ryan O’Reilly and Joel Eriksson Ek are at 65, 79 and 68%, so they’re probably gone in your league. Jimmy Snuggerud is on the St. Louis Blues’ first line and PP1 at 33%. Foerster you already met. Anthony Cirelli is playing 18.4 minutes in Tampa, up about a minute, and he’s on 27% of rosters. He’s on the second power-play unit, so he’s here on minutes alone.

Watch: new on the first unit

Figure 2

Everybody here had less than 40% of his team’s power play last season and is on PP1 now. I’d still hold them loosely, because about half of October PP1 promotions are still on PP1 by Game 40.

Noah Ostlund is the deep-league name. He’s on Buffalo’s PP1 too, up to 18.0 minutes from 14.0, and he’s on under 2% of rosters. Kasperi Kapanen is on Edmonton’s top unit with Ryan Nugent-Hopkins and Zach Hyman out, and that one has an end date in the middle of October. Podkolzin is in the same spot and he’s the one the market already found. Matthew Wood moved down here from the risers after Thursday’s game, because his minutes dipped to 16.0, but he still has 56% of Nashville’s power play at 1% rostered. Maxim Shabanov moved from the Islanders to the Minnesota Wild and has 71% of their power play, at 2% rostered. Kent Johnson is on Columbus’ top line and PP1 through two games.

Hampus Lindholm fell off this board, and his spot runs out Oct. 13 anyway, when Charlie McAvoy is eligible to come back from his suspension. Igor Chernyshov is still on San Jose’s PP1, but the Sharks are getting badly outshot when he’s on the ice, and Macklin Celebrini is day-to-day.

Rookie minutes, four games in

Figure 3

Rookie minutes earn the same trust as anybody’s. After four games, a rookie’s ice time gets about half the weight against what my prospect model expected, the same as a veteran’s last season.

Luneau is the clear one. Luca Cagnoni is the other, with 70% of San Jose’s power-play time as a rookie defenceman, at 34% rostered. He’s running the first unit. The catch is the Sharks are getting outshot when he’s on the ice, so the points may come slower than the job.

Gavin McKenna is on 77% of rosters and playing 14.5 minutes, about three under what the model expected, and the chart now has him on Toronto’s third line and second power-play unit, so he dropped off the figure. Porter Martone is under his expected minutes in Philadelphia too, at 12.9. That’s five games, and both of them are still on the second unit. I’d be patient and check again in a couple of weeks.

The injury clock

Doors that are closing: Severson on Friday, which is Mateychuk. McAvoy on Oct. 13, which is Lindholm. Nugent-Hopkins around the middle of October, with no timeline yet for Hyman, which is Podkolzin and Kapanen. Seth Jarvis skated in a regular jersey on Thursday, so Logan Stankoven‘s extra minutes could end soon.

Doors that just opened: Aleksander Barkov is out 6-8 weeks, so Florida is one to watch next week. Ivan Demidov is out 2-4 weeks in Montreal. Alexander Romanov is likely out for the season on the Islanders’ blue line. Josh Morrissey and Jake Sanderson are day-to-day. Ryan Lindgren is out four to six weeks in Seattle.

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The playbook

1. Use minutes to find the job and shots to pick the player. Extra minutes mostly stick, so they tell you the job is real. But when I ranked waiver guys by the size of their minutes jump, they scored less than the guys with the most early shots or the most early points. Among the bigger jobs, take the one who shoots. 2. Look at both columns. The risers have the biggest jumps. The best-level guys were better to start with, and in the test that mattered more. If you have one spot, I’d lean to the second column. 3. Plan for the return. When a job opened because a teammate is out, expect it to shrink by a good amount when he’s back, but not to disappear. 4. Treat these as bench adds. Only about one in six scored like a starter in a 10-team league. They’re upgrades on your last spot. 5. Give rookies the same four games. Their minutes earn about the same weight as anybody’s at this point, so a slow start is half the story. 6. Keep the stars you drafted. Nobody here is a reason to move them.