The New York Islanders gave Mathew Barzal an 'injured non-roster' designation on Monday, per Andrew Gross. He currently has a knee injury and remember that he had knee surgery in February of 2025. His designation means he did not pass his physical at training camp, so this is clearly a lingering knee issue, which is worrisome. He is eligible to return to the lineup whenever he's medically cleared, but when that will be is still up in the air.

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Some news on St. Louis Blues defenceman Logan Mailloux:

Blues GM Alexander Steen said Logan Mailloux had a hand procedure yesterday and will be re-evaluated in eight weeks. Tyler Tucker (knee) is week to week while he waits for a second opinion.

— Matthew DeFranks (@MDeFranks) September 28, 2026

That timeline would put his return sometime after American Thanksgiving. He was the only real threat to Philip Broberg getting top power-play time – Cam Fowler could slide in but that would mean things have gone horrifically wrong – so it's bad news for Mailloux and the Blues but good news for Broberg backers.

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We have an annual tradition here at Dobber Hockey that all the editors, writers, and Dobber himself send in their predictions for the upcoming season. Predictions include award winners, players to disappoint/rebound, division winners, and Stanley Cup champion. To get all our thoughts on the 2026-27 campaign, go check it out.

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It's time, everyone. The 84-game, 2026-27 regular season begins tonight with a five-game slate starting at 5 PM ET. Low-key one of the best things about tonight is that no games have the same start time. Only one game starts at the bottom of the hour – the Chicago Blackhawks visit the Vegas Golden Knights with a 10:30 PM ET designation – but we take the spread-out games when we can get them.

Now that the fantasy draft season is over (or nearly over), I want to get to some of my final rankings. I avoid doing this earlier because the Dobber Fantasy Guide has its own rankings and projections, so giving mine away for free doesn't make sense. But I said I would post my own rankings, so I will.

As I've been using in recent Ramblings discussing my projections, the evaluation method is called 'Z-Score', which measures how far above (or below) a player is from a replacement-level option at their position. That gives each player a specific value for a specific fantasy category within the context of being a forward/defenceman/goalie, then we add the values together for one overall number. The fantasy stats used are goals, assists, shots, blocks, hits, and power-play points.

Data for projections come from Natural Stat Trick, Evolving Hockey, All Three Zones, and Frozen Tools. Every player is projected for 84 games, even if we know guys like Connor Bedard and Seth Jarvis are starting the season injured. When I did my own drafts, I adjusted their GP for their anticipated absence, but for season-long evaluations, I leave it at 84 games.

Groups of players are assembled into tiers, and for the sake of brevity, I will only discuss my first 9 tiers of players which comprises the top 101 fantasy values.

Tier 1

We have Nathan MacKinnon and Zach Werenski in my top tier. The forward won't surprise anyone, but I imagine not many people have Werenski at the top of board for blue liners. My projections have Werenski second in points among defencemen (behind Quinn Hughes), projected for a couple more goals and assists than Cale Makar. With a huge edge in shots on goal, Werenski moves to the first defenceman overall. Last year, Werenski finished fourth by fantasy value at his position using this format in 75 games played. Maybe he doesn't finish as the top blue liner, but a healthy season makes him a near-lock for finishing top 5 at the position.

Tier 2

This next tier rounds out our top-10 with top forwards being sandwiched by Makar and Andrei Vasilevskiy.

The one player that might stand out is Jack Eichel. His Fantrax ADP is somewhere in the 15-20 range while Yahoo has him 20-25. A big reason for my bullishness is that part of my projection modelling includes regressing shooting percentage for high-volume shooters, and those guys average 13-14%. My projections have Eichel at 13.8% shooting, but his best conversion season with Vegas was 12.1% in 2022-23. If the rest of his projections remain the same, but he shoots 11% instead of 13.8%, he drops out of the top 10. There is also the fact that he hasn't played 80 games in a season since his rookie year, so there's plenty of risk labeling him a top-10 option.

Tier 3

This tier is when it becomes obvious that the way fantasy drafts unfold and the way these rankings work is not the same. Defencemen become highly valued when evaluating by position scarcity because the elite fantasy blue liners offer so much compared not only to replacement-level value, but even a top-25 option. There are 17 players in my first three tiers and six of them are defencemen, and in 99% of fantasy drafts, you would not see six defencemen taken among the top 17 picks, but that doesn't mean they don't bring immense value to a fantasy roster.

Tier 4

The reason there are only three players in this tier is that the gap between Matt Boldy and the player above him (Wyatt Johnston) is just under 4% of fantasy value, and the gap between Nick Suzuki and the player below him (Juraj Slafkovsky) is just over 4% of fantasy value. When discussing the top fantasy options, 4% of fantasy value is a lot, so these three are truly in a tier of their own.

Quinn Hughes is my seventh defenceman and there's no chance he's being drafted outside the first five blue liners. I would point out that in this format last season, Hughes finished 10^th overall. That was with just 74 games played, but even if we pro-rate to 80 games, he finishes fourth. In a points-only format, there's a good argument that Hughes should be the first defenceman selected. In a multi-cat format like this, his drag on hits and blocks really hurts his value.

Tier 5

Kirill Kaprizov is the name that stands out, but the concern is he contributes so few hits and blocks that he's substantially negative value in both categories. If he were just average in those areas, he would be my 13^th overall player, and if we were to assume only one defenceman and no goalie were taken in the first round, he rises to 10^th, which is more in line with his ADP. It is also a reminder that fantasy rosters are a jigsaw puzzle; if I think I can get the hits and blocks I need later in a draft, then Kaprizov's negatives are somewhat nullified. But he does put you in a hole to start with.

As with Hughes, it's worth noting that last season in 78 games played, using this format, Kaprizov was the 30^th overall skater and 15^th overall forward.  

Tier 6

I will be honest, my projections for Mika Zibanejad make me nervous. Last season was a big bounce-back year for him, and he had 34 goals and 78 points; my projections have him with 35 goals and 88 points. Projecting a 33-year-old player to have his best season in four years is why I'm nervous, but my modelling believes that the New York Rangers' blue line has been substantially improved offensively to a point where they are a difference-maker. The nice thing about Zibanejad rating this highly is that he is almost never a top-50 pick in fantasy drafts, so there's some safety built into having him projected where he is.

There is also a huge multi-cat season predicted for Dylan Holloway with 30 goals, 73 points, 215 shots, 58 blocks, and 190 hits. It makes him a top-40 value.

Tier 7

Here we have our biggest chunk of players, all separated by just 17% of fantasy value.

Matthew Tkachuk being ranked here is the name that will stand out. My projections have him for 34 goals, 86 points, and a shade over 3.0 shots per game. That is a great production season. However, I do wonder if people realize Tkachuk has a grand total of 19 blocks in 83 games over the last two seasons. A replacement-level fantasy forward posts over double that total in an 84-game season. If Tkachuk could be just average in blocked shots, he goes from a top-50 fantasy player to a top-25 fantasy player – that is how much he hurts fantasy managers in that category.

Tier 8

Cole Caufield will be the one that surprises people, and it's understandable given his 50-goal season. Last week, I wrote about why I wasn't drafting him, so go read that for a bit more context.

The other name is William Nylander, but he falls into the same bucket we've seen from other forwards: he is such a huge drag on hits and blocks – he's averaged 44.7 combined hits and blocksper 82 games over the last two years – that it crushes his overall fantasy value. Being average in those areas takes him from 81^st overall on my board to 41^st overall on my board, and much closer, or even right in line, with his ADPs. As with Kaprizov, if I think I can get my blocks/hits in other areas to make up for Nylander's shortcomings, then that negates his lack of peripherals, but he will be a massive drag in one-third of the fantasy categories we're using and that's a problem.

Tier 9

Our final tier is loaded with players similar to Kaprizov and Nylander, but who aren't quite as productive in the other four categories: Jesper Bratt, Lucas Raymond, Robert Thomas, Brayden Point, and Artemi Panarin are all ranked somewhere between 85-101. If any of them can have a surprise year and give us some hits or blocks (or both) that we weren't expecting, it drastically changes their fantasy outlook.

Also take note of Anton Frondell here. I have mentioned it during this fantasy draft season, but I am rarely anywhere near as high on rookies as most people seem to be (in redraft leagues), and it keeps me from almost ever drafting them. Frondell is an exception, as he falls just inside my top 100 fantasy values. Whether he lives up to it, we'll find out in the next 6.5 months, but this is an extreme rarity for me so it's worth mentioning.