Best Value Late Round NHL Fantasy Picks 2026-27

The late rounds of a hockey draft is often a shitshow filled with nobodies, longshot bets, and people picking their own personal favorite players. But there are still some gems that will get picked with an ADP (average draft position) of 100+ that will give you consistently good performances and have gone generally unnoticed. Do note, that these are not my longshot upside picks, those will come later.

Analyzing players this late in the draft is a little bit tough. The ADP tends to flatten a ton with 22 players between 120 and 130. This is due to the fact that a lot of these players are simply not getting drafted which doesn’t change their ADP. The replacement that gains value here is drafted %. Keep in mind there are some small leagues with only 8 players (hence only 128 total picks) so we can get a sense of what is available here, just note that comparing to ADP is next to useless at this point.

HM2: Philip Broberg

Last year the St. Louis Blues traded Justin Faulk to the Red Wings, leaving an opening in the roster for a #1 defenseman. Philip Broberg was the player that was inserted, and he took off and never looked back. After the trade he was averaging 6.14 fantasy points per game over the span of 21 games. Assuming he can keep this role this would put him in the range of a solid number 3 defenseman that you are drafting at the position of your 4th/5th defenseman.

His role is definitely the biggest concern as he only took it on for the last quarter of a season, but his competition is not very strong. Logan Mailloux is anticipated to take on the power play 2 as the rest of the defenseman are almost all defensively minded, making Broberg all but locked for the top scoring defenseman role on a potentially exciting blues team.

There is an argument to be made that he should be in my “high upside” list, but I don’t think he really fits there either seeing as the risk is not particularly high but his upside is not otherworldly.

My Rank: 107 (80% drafted)

HM: Nico Hischier

Nico Hischier may not be a top line player, but that doesn’t mean he can’t score. He is playing between Evangelista and Timo Meier who, while not superstars, are very good players. Hischier also is playing behind Jack Hughes who loves to get himself hurt in all sorts of ways and give Hischier opportunities to lead a frankly stacked forward group for the New Jersey Devils.

Last year he was forward 43 making him a really solid depth addition to your roster. He is my second favorite forward that I can slot in and still be confident to take wild swings after because his point totals are comfortably better than the replacement level. Low risk medium reward is amazing at this point in the draft.

My Rank: 83 (85% drafted)

5: Mathew Barzal

This is a boring pick unfortunately, but a good pick for sure. Mathew Barzal on a points per game basis is way better than where he sits in the draft. His biggest concern is his injury history, missing over 50 games 2 years ago and missing 24 games 4 years ago. Coming off of a healthy year it is safe to say things are looking promising heading into this year. Having guys like Barzal that you can throw into your lineup and be confident they can get you points every night allows you to take a ton of risks on exciting rookies later on. He put up an assist heavy 72 points last year in addition to some decent peripherals, and while I do have questions surrounding the team as a whole, I expect that Barzal can continue to produce at a reasonable clip to justify drafting him.

Barzal falls into the level where more casual NHL fans have never heard of a guy and doesn’t really know much about them. I have seen this guy fall fully through mock drafts or get picked up very late by an autodrafting bot. You don’t need to rush for this guy, but if you need a center or right winger I would strongly encourage drafting this guy.

My Rank: 108 (59% drafted)

4: Spencer Knight

Spencer Knight is the first of 3 goalies on this list that fit a very similar category of young, good goalies on relatively unproven teams. Every time that you draft a goalie, you are taking a risk. Where most players generate most of their points based off of how good they are, goalies generate points based off of not only their performance, but also the performance of a backup (inverse correlation) and the team in front of them (direct correlation). At this point in the draft there are no players that are really “safe” so the added risk is far less noticeable than it would be in earlier rounds which makes a player like Spencer Knight very appealing.

As far as the player himself, Spencer Knight was great last year despite the terrible team in front of him. Now, they have made sizable improvement both with the addition of Bowen Byram, as well as generally aging a year for a very young team. Spencer Knight also has minimal competition as Soderblom had a truly terrible year last year. Going as goalie 22, we don’t need to see the stars align for him to get good value. If we can just continue to see what we saw last year with a boosted team in front of him, there could be a goalie here that you can really rely on despite being grabbed so late in the draft. I do question his ceiling seeing as the Blackhawks are a mediocre team at best, but this feels like as safe of a bet as you are going to find in this range.

My Rank: 75 (94% drafted)

3: Dustin Wolf

Remember last year when Dustin Wolf was going in the first two rounds? I do, and he was a bust. So is he washed up, all done never to be good again? No. Absolutely not. He wasn’t great but every year someone falls due to coming off of a sophomore slump. Dustin Wolf fits this mold perfectly, and even if he fully falls flat like he did last year there is still some value there. He is a young goalie who had a down year and was still a top 15 goalie in fantasy. He should be drafted in basically every league based on these stats and he is going undrafted in a staggering 77% of leagues. I don’t expect the highs we saw in Wolf’s rookie season but this should be a solid starter for you that you can get super late.

The biggest concern I have here is the team in front of him. The Calgary Flames have little ability to score goals, and hence win games. This team is a disaster, I would consider 31st in the league an overperformance. This isn’t a huge difference from last year but it definitely caps the ceiling of Wolf. For this reason I would encourage either pairing him with an established guy or as one of three goalies in a zero-g strategy.

My Rank: 77 (23% drafted)

2: Seth Jarvis

Seth Jarvis is hurt. That is the only downside. Seth Jarvis played in 71 games last year but produces comparable to Filip Forsberg and Tim Stützle on a per game basis. This guy is elite and when he gets healthy in time for the fantasy hockey playoffs you are basically creating a free early round pick out of thin air and that is something that is so powerful if you want to win your league. He also seems to be trending ahead of schedule, already skating a bit in training camp is a great sign that there haven’t been significant complications to his recovery. The risk here is making sure that you don’t bleed too much early by having a player on IR even when things are going to plan at the start of the year.

His early season injury is also not as big of a deal as it seems. The first few weeks it is very risky to drop players in order to stream players based on their schedule. Seth Jarvis gives you a free roster slot in order to do so with little to no risk. Additionally, the replacement is not going to be putting up that many points in these later rounds so the replacement will at most cost you 1 game, that will probably be made up in the second half of the season with your wagon of a team. Just make sure that you don’t grab Bedard as well because that is far too much of a penalty early in the season.

My Rank: 82 (83% drafted)

1: Jet Greaves

Last year, Jet Greaves was goalie 6. The year before he only played 11 games but put up 15.6 fantasy points per game, more than Connor Hellebuyck. It is too early to call this guy elite, but we have seen early signs in that direction. His competition is also not that significant. Elvis Merlikins recently underwent surgery and is expected to miss a significant amount of time, this forced them to bring in a 39 year old Cam Talbot who was not good last year. This guy will be given a true number 1 spot unless something drastic changes. He is on average going around the same time as UPL and Carter Hart who both have big question marks around their game. There is just a ton to love about this pick.

The biggest fear I have for Jet Greaves is a complete implosion of the team around him. Marchenko reportedly wants out, Werenski wanted out and then didn’t, and Adam Fantilli didn’t have a contract until after training camp was mostly complete. There are a ton of red flags around the team that doesn’t give me the warm and fuzzies. All that being said, there is still massive upside if this team works out and can at least be close to a playoff spot like they were last year. The talent is there and even if they have a garage sale on their players, I believe that Jet Greaves is good enough to be worth a roster slot in nearly any league size.

My Rank: 74 (95% drafted)