It didn't take Chris Kreider long to find a new home. After his contract was terminated by the Anaheim Ducks, Kreider signed a one-year contract with the Montreal Canadiens. I wrote the Fantasy Take on this one.

Prior to today, Kreider was not well-liked by Habs fans for this incident during the 2014 Eastern Conference Final. Carey Price was forced to leave this series, with the Habs eventually losing in six games to the Rangers. It's funny how things work out sometimes.

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The Vegas Golden Knights have signed Mark Stone to a two-year extension worth $9 million per season. The Vegas captain is currently earning $9.5 million per season, so this represents a slight reduction in pay. This makes sense, given the fact that Stone has not appeared in 70 games since the 2018-19 season, which was his first with the Golden Knights after being traded at the deadline by Ottawa.

Because of his injury risk, Stone is ranked #96 at Yahoo despite producing at over a point per game over the past two seasons. In fact, I've seen Stone picked after pick 120 in two of the four mock drafts that I've participated in. In other words, fantasy leaguers understand the risk. In standard-sized drafts (12 teams, 16 rounds), Stone should be considered a mid-round pick and nothing higher. He's a worthwhile gamble at that point because of the upside. You'll need a solid contingency plan to account for the 20 or so games that he'll probably miss, though.

Find out where Stone will rank in the Top 100 Roto Rankings, which will be updated for September (and for fantasy drafts) in a matter of days. Special thanks to Bangers Fantasy Hockey for their work. You'll see a lot more player shuffling than normal this month!  

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After a few Yahoo mock drafts, I decided to test one over at Fantrax. They didn't have as many scheduled as Yahoo, but I was able to find one that fit my west coast evening schedule.

The league settings (from what I could find):

5 F, 3 D, 2 G, 6 BN.

Skaters (points): A=3, G=4, Hit=0.25, SHG=2, SOG=0.5, PPP=1

Goalies (points): A=3, GA=-1, SV=0.25, SHO=5, W=5

Here's how the draft turned out for me:

I won't go pick by pick for this one. Instead, I'll offer some general observations:

Nathan MacKinnon was an easy first-round pick for me. Not surprisingly, Connor McDavid went first overall. You can review all of the picks at my personal blog Goods Fantasy Hockey.

The first round went much (much much much) slower than Yahoo mock drafts. That had a lot to do with a high number of autopickers (only 3 of 12 including myself appeared to be real people). One comment from one of the other two real-life drafters: "Man these AI take forever." This was the complete opposite of Yahoo, which feels you'll miss your pick if you blink.

Fantrax is a fantastic product that is in many ways superior to what Yahoo offers, especially in dynasty formats. However, it does not generate nearly the traffic that Yahoo does. Think of it like the restaurant that makes your favorite burger versus a big-name fast-food chain. One place makes the best burger in town, while the other place sells more burgers because it's a brand name that everyone knows.

Then the second round came around and all the autopicks, well, autopicked immediately. That meant I wasn't ready for my pick. As a result, the system selected Tage Thompson for me. That's a little high for Thompson in my opinion, but not necessarily a terrible pick. 

I seem to enjoy selecting Jake Sanderson in mock drafts, because I did so again. Doesn't matter whether it's Yahoo or Fantrax. And just like my previous mock draft, Darren Raddysh wasn't too far behind again.

I think I have a potential steal with Matthew Tkachuk in the fifth round. He'd been at the top of my ADP list in this draft since the second round. Are fantasy teams really shying away from him because of the recent injuries? I think that's a big mistake letting him fall that far.

Then it was Erik Karlsson and then Shea Theodore after that for me. Not the first time I've picked these players in mock drafts!

Pavel Dorofeyev may not be getting as much love now that he's with the Rangers. He should have no problem receiving top-6 and power-play minutes there, though.

Right before I picked Scott Wedgewood, there was a real run on goalies: Jesper Wallstedt, Spencer Knight, Linus Ullmark, Dan Vladar, and Brandon Bussi all went right before Wedgewood. Lots of goalies were picked about a round before, starting at about pick 100: Igor Shesterkin, Jeremy Swayman, Karel Vejmelka, Juuse Saros, Mackenzie Blackwood, Jakub Dobes, Jet Greaves, Lukas Dostal, Jacob Markstrom, Joel Hofer, and Sergei Bobrovsky. That's the algorithm at work, I guess!  

I went with Carter Hart after Wedgewood. Both could provide solid value after pick 100.

My Canucks fandom showed with Elias Pettersson and Filip Hronek in the late rounds. Sadly, the Canucks may not have a player in the top 100 this season. Want to know which teams have the most overall fantasy value? This Top 10 article answers that question. To no one's surprise, the Canucks aren't in there.

There was still plenty of solid scoring in the late rounds with Dylan Strome and Roope Hintz. I treated this like a best ball league (set and forget lineup) that records the points of your team for the entire season, so I thought it would be better to pick established veterans than to get cute by picking rookies and young breakout candidates.

Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen was my final pick, while Frederik Andersen was the true Mr. Irrelevant one pick after to finish this draft. Don't forget that Andersen won't take part in training camp due to an undisclosed injury, which means that he may not be available to start the season.

Overall, mock drafts are absolutely worth doing, even when most of the room is autopicking. Odds are you'll have one or two autopick teams in your real draft anyway, and every run‑through helps you get a feel for who you want and where you're comfortable taking them. What's become clear after doing so many of these is that no two drafts play out the same. Flexibility matters. Don't lock yourself into a rigid plan if the board starts breaking differently than you expected. Adapt, adjust, and let the draft come to you.

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Follow me on X @Ian_Gooding and Bluesky @goodsfantasyhockey.bsky.social