There have been rumblings that this offseason could be a busy one for trades and even trade requests. The Stanley Cup Final is not over yet and already two players have reportedly requested trades: Dylan Larkin and Darnell Nurse. I wrote about Larkin last week, while today I'll focus on Nurse.

The general hockey narrative around Nurse focuses on his defensive shortcomings (I'll let the chart below explain) relative to his contract (four more years at a $9.25 million cap hit).

Nurse should be viewed differently in fantasy hockey, though. In terms of cross-category coverage in peripherals, Nurse is an asset. When adding the three categories of shots, hits, and blocks, Nurse finished eighth in the league this past season with 466 SOG+HIT+BKS. Alter it slightly to the pure bangers categories of penalty minutes, hits, and blocks, Nurse finished ninth in the NHL with 407 PIM+HIT+BKS. If it's just hits and blocks, Nurse finished 17^th with 303 HIT+BKS.

In pure scoring leagues, Nurse can be largely ignored with just 24 points in 82 games in 2025-26. He has reached 40 points in the past, so he's not completely a defensive defenseman either. In deciding whether Nurse is worth rostering, league settings really matter.

How a trade would affect Nurse's value could depend on at least a couple factors. One big one is deployment, as Nurse needs icetime to accumulate the stats he specializes in. Over the past five seasons, Nurse's icetime has trended downward from over 25 minutes in 2020-21 to just under 21 minutes this past season. A further decline could result in fewer shots, hits, blocks, and potentially even penalty minutes. On top of that, will a different coach emphasize Nurse focus on the areas he excels at, along with of course granting him top-4 minutes? We'll find out this offseason whether the Oilers are actually able to move Nurse.

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Continuing my look back at the past season, I'm making space both today and tomorrow spotlighting players who truly dominated a single category. Sure, many of them contributed elsewhere too, but each one stood out for being exceptionally strong in one particular area.

Goals: Steven Stamkos

It's hard to find a goal scorer that doesn't help with other categories in some ways. However, Stamkos wasn't that strong in a few other notable categories. Stamkos was tied for ninth in goals with 42 goals, bouncing back from a disappointing first season in Nashville.

In comparison, Stamkos recorded just 24 assists, which was the lowest assist total among the 35 players that scored at least 32 goals. Stamkos' 204 shots wasn't a terrible number on its own, but his 20.6 SH% is high enough relative to other recent seasons that his goal total could drop next season. If your league counts plus/minus, Stamkos finished with a minus-17, which is his third consecutive season with a double-digit negative plus/minus.

At 36 years old, Stamkos' future value will depend a lot on his ability to continue scoring goals. If the goals dry up, then so will much of his fantasy value.

Assists: Quinn Hughes (defensemen)

Hughes shouldn't be anyone's idea of a goal scorer. Over the previous two seasons he totaled 17 and 16 goals, which were his only double-digit goal totals. In 2025-26 he was back below 10 goals, scoring just seven times compared to 69 assists. After scoring just two in 26 games with the Canucks, Hughes scored five in 48 games with the Wild.

Among qualified defensemen, Hughes finished fourth with a 1.03 PTS/GP average, which was his lowest in three seasons. The goal total had plenty to do with that. His 3.7 SH% was his lowest shooting percentage in five seasons, while his shot average (2.5 SOG/GP) remained relatively consistent. Better luck in the goal department should result in more points for Hughes next season.

Hughes almost never hits anyone, as he has 20 total hits over the past two seasons. With low-to-moderate penalty minute and blocked shots totals, his value won't improve in bangers leagues. It's all scoring with Hughes.

Assists: Mathew Barzal (forwards)

Barzal is here because he was the only forward to reach at least 50 assists while scoring fewer than 20 goals in 2025-26. Over a nine-year NHL career, Barzal has only reached 20 goals twice: during his rookie season of 2017-18 and then in 2023-24, when he reached a career high of 80 points. A lack of goals seems to be the main reason that Barzal is not an elite fantasy option – just a very good one.

A mainstay on the Islanders' top power play, Barzal has decent power-play point totals as a result. But that's about where his cross-category coverage ends. Barzal has only reached 200 shots once in his career, and that was during his career-best 2023-24 season. He averages between 20-30 hits per season, while he has only exceeded 50 penalty minutes just once (this past season). Barzal is not an asset in the faceoff circle if your league counts faceoff win percentage, as he has never reached 50 percent in that category in any one season.

Overall, Barzal provides better fantasy value in pure points leagues than he does in multicategory leagues.

Power-play goals: Jake DeBrusk

DeBrusk's 23 goals and 43 points in 2025-26 were nothing too out of the ordinary. However, 19 of his 23 goals were on the power play. In fact, Wyatt Johnston and Pavel Dorofeyev were the only two players to score more power-play goals than DeBrusk, who also tied with Kirill Kaprizov in that category. In his two seasons in Vancouver, DeBrusk has amassed 33 power-play goals.

In multicategory leagues, DeBrusk's game has some holes in other categories. His career high in assists is 23, while he has posted back-to-back seasons of exactly 20 assists with the Canucks. The lack of assists has capped his personal single-season career high at 50 points. DeBrusk has only exceeded 200 shots on goal once, and that was this past season. Then there's the plus-minus, which to put a positive spin on things, highlighted his strength as a power-play contributor. DeBrusk's minus-32 in 2025-26 was tied for fifth-worst in the league, although we know how bad the Canucks were.

The rebuilding Canucks could move on from DeBrusk in the offseason, with rumors suggesting he doesn't want to be part of a rebuild. An acquiring team would be well advised to find room for him on the top power play, particularly in front of the net. A significant percentage of DeBrusk's goals (34.8%) were tip-ins. In fact, only Dmitri Voronkov scored more tip-in goals (11) than DeBrusk (8) in 2025-26. From above, do the math from DeBrusk's power-play output and you'll see that he scored just four goals and 18 points at even strength last season.

Power-play points: Ryan Nugent-Hopkins

Nugent-Hopkins' 56 points in 72 games in 2025-26 was a decent improvement from his 49 points in 78 games in 2024-25. The difference was his power-play production, which increased by nine points. In fact, over half of RNH's production in 2025-26 came in the form of power-play points (29 PPP).

The Oilers' power play is known as one of the best in the league, and unlike other aspects of the team, it did not disappoint. The Oilers finished with a league-best 31.5% power-play conversion rate. The drivers of that power play – Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl – finished first and third in the league in power-play points. As well, their PPIPP was at 84.4% and 77.8%, respectively. Nugent-Hopkins and Evan Bouchard finished at around 50% PPIPP or just over. Nugent-Hopkins isn't as involved in the scoring on the power play, but he certainly benefits from it.

Following a 104-point season in 2022-23, Nugent-Hopkins has fallen back to earth with what is his normal point production. He usually averages under 200 shots on goal and somewhere around 20 goals. Not a strong peripheral categories player anywhere else, Nugent-Hopkins is more valuable in pure points leagues than multicategory leagues, unless there are few categories and one of them is power-play points.

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