Here are the Top 120 defensemen to own in your points-only dynasty leagues – December edition!

But first, in case you missed the announcement earlier in the week, we have set a date for the release of the 18th annual Midseason Fantasy Hockey Guide! Look for it January 8, 2026 and you can pre-order it here (unless you bought the Ultimate Fantasy Pack or have the Gold/Platinum subscription – in which case you will already get it!)

As always, players within +/-5.0 ratings of each other should be considered equal value and at that point become a matter of team needs or personal bias.

Click any player name to be taken to his customized fantasy hockey profile page, with game logs, metrics, trends and injury news – whatever you need to make a decision. Bookmark it!

Rankings for all the skaters were posted Tuesday here.

Def. Rk	Player	Team	Rating	Dec	Nov	Change
1	Cale Makar	COL	213.6	6	6	0
2	Quinn Hughes	VAN	147.1	28	32	4
3	Evan Bouchard	EDM	121.9	42	41	-1
4	Adam Fox	NYR	118.9	46	49	3
5	Rasmus Dahlin	BUF	116.0	49	37	-12
6	Josh Morrissey	WPG	113.5	54	60	6
7	Lane Hutson	MON	112.2	56	56	0
8	Zach Werenski	CBJ	112.1	57	64	7
9	Noah Dobson	MON	96.4	76	73	-3
10	Jake Sanderson	OTT	87.8	86	85	-1
11	Matthew Schaefer	NYI	86.8	89	131	42
12	Miro Heiskanen	DAL	86.7	90	136	46
13	Mikhail Sergachev	UTA	79.7	98	94	-4
14	Victor Hedman	TBL	77.0	105	78	-27
15	Thomas Harley	DAL	75.3	106	95	-11
16	Jakob Chychrun	WAS	75.2	107	145	38
17	Shea Theodore	VGK	73.8	110	101	-9
18	Moritz Seider	DET	73.5	112	123	11
19	Luke Hughes	NJD	69.7	123	120	-3
20	Shayne Gostisbehere	CAR	66.0	126	161	35
21	Erik Karlsson	PIT	64.6	131	128	-3
22	John Carlson	WAS	61.0	137	173	36
23	Charlie McAvoy	BOS	60.4	143	148	5
24	Roman Josi	NSH	57.1	148	155	7
25	Simon Nemec	NJD	57.0	149	171	22
26	Vince Dunn	SEA	56.1	152	159	7
27	Filip Hronek	VAN	55.0	156	197	41
28	Artyom Levshunov	CHI	54.3	157	223	66
29	Dougie Hamilton	NJD	52.8	160	149	-11
30	Brandt Clarke	LAK	49.7	171	158	-13
31	Thomas Chabot	OTT	44.9	180	186	6
32	Brandon Montour	SEA	44.6	182	190	8
33	Zeev Buium	MIN	43.9	187	156	-31
34	Jackson Lacombe	ANA	42.6	192	206	14
35	Morgan Rielly	TOR	41.8	194	220	26
36	Bowen Byram	BUF	40.3	199	201	2
37	Seth Jones	FLA	40.0	201	227	26
38	Zayne Parekh	CGY	39.8	203	211	8
39	Rasmus Andersson	CGY	37.6	209	376	167
40	Axel Sandin Pellikka	DET	33.8	222	229	7
41	Jamie Drysdale	PHI	33.5	223	241	18
42	Brock Faber	MIN	32.7	226	252	26
43	Alexander Nikishin	CAR	32.5	227	222	-5
44	Owen Power	BUF	31.4	232	208	-24
45	Jake Walman	EDM	30.9	235	243	8
46	Denton Mateychuk	CBJ	29.9	237	245	8
47	K’Andre Miller	CAR	28.2	242	286	44
48	Mike Matheson	MON	27.5	245	280	35
49	Devon Toews	COL	27.0	248	236	-12
50	Darren Raddysh	TBL	25.5	257	400	143
51	Sam Dickinson	SJS	25.3	259	416	157
52	Oliver Ekman-Larsson	TOR	25.2	260	480	220
53	Gustav Forsling	FLA	23.2	275	275	0
54	Cole Hutson	WAS	22.1	283	284	1
55	Mason Lohrei	BOS	21.5	284	288	4
56	Cam Fowler	STL	21.2	288	251	-37
57	Aaron Ekblad	FLA	21.1	289	292	3
58	Mackenzie Weegar	CGY	21.1	290	294	4
59	Jordan Spence	OTT	20.8	292	298	6
60	Sean Durzi	UTA	20.6	295	301	6
61	Noah Hanifin	VGK	20.2	300	228	-72
62	Simon Edvinsson	DET	20.0	305	281	-24
63	Cam York	PHI	17.7	332	432	100
64	Carter Yakemchuk	OTT	16.6	350	359	9
65	Darnell Nurse	EDM	16.1	359	332	-27

The Next Group (gap between 66 and 90 is same as gap between 17 and 20 – i.e. they are pretty equal)

Olen Zellweger	ANA	Samuel Girard	COL
Pavel Mintyukov	ANA	Seamus Casey	NJD
Michael Kesselring	BUF	Tanner Molendyk	NSH
Ivan Provorov	CBJ	Scott Morrow	NYR
Sam Rinzel	CHI	Ryker Evans	SEA
Kevin Korchinski	CHI	Luca Cagnoni	SJS
Mattias Ekholm	EDM	Timothy Liljegren	SJS
David Jiricek	MIN	Logan Mailloux	STL
Kaiden Guhle	MON	Justin Faulk	STL
Travis Sanheim	PHI	Tom Willander	VAN
Emil Andrae	PHI	Lukas Cormier	VGK
Philip Broberg	STL	Neal Pionk	WPG
Rasmus Sandin	WAS

Vets who can chip in, injury risks, prospects with varying degrees of upside and wait time, other defensemen with lower upside and expectations but can chip in at times

Tristan Luneau	ANA	Hampus Lindholm	BOS
Jaccob Slavin	CAR	Radim Mrtka	BUF
Dante Fabbro	CBJ	Conor Timmins	BUF
Damon Severson	CBJ	Hunter Brzustewicz	CGY
Nils Lundkvist	DAL	Matt Grzelcyk	CHI
Drew Doughty	LAK	Anton Silayev	NJD
Mikey Anderson	LAK	Nicolas Hague	NSH
Justin Barron	NSH	Nick Perbix	NSH
Brady Skjei	NSH	Cameron Reid	NSH
Alexander Romanov	NYI	Tony DeAngelo	NYI
Braden Schneider	NYR	Kris Letang	PIT
Owen Pickering	PIT	Shakir Mukhamadullin	SJS
J.J. Moser	TBL	Colton Parayko	STL
Dmitri Simashev	UTA	Charle-Edouard D’Astous	TBL
Elias Salomonsson	WPG	Maveric Lamoureux	UTA