October is around the corner, which means it is fantasy hockey draft season!

As you may know by now, I fancy myself as the numbers guy on the Die By The Blade crew. On top of my analytical contributions to the 2019-20 season - of which there will be plenty - I have decided to offer up my services as your go-to advisor for the fantasy hockey season (unless you’re in my leagues...then go away). Whether it’s fulfilling daily fantasy needs, or, in this case, gaining an advantage in your season-long league, just keep your stick on the ice as I hope to feed you the game-winning assist.

So, what better way to start than with some position rankings? My database is updated as of September 25th, and breaks down each player’s projections at even-strength, special teams, player usage and roles, and team performance. In order to keep things clear-cut, I will simply provide a list of the top projected fantasy players at each position for the upcoming season. I will leave the position value or auction price up to you, since many leagues vary in procedure.

So without further ado, here are the lists:

Keep in mind that I used Yahoo’s default scoring settings for head-to-head points leagues as the basis for these projections.

Center

26. Brayden Point 27. Derek Stepan 28. Ryan Getzlaf 29. Elias Pettersson 30. Nazem Kadri 31. Paul Stastny 32. Anze Kopitar 33. Ryan O’Reilly 34. Mark Scheifele 35. Evgeny Kuznetsov 36. Nicklas Backstrom 37. Colin White 38. Ryan Nugent-Hopkins 39. William Karlsson 40. Vincent Trocheck 41. Mikael Backlund 42. Max Domi 43. Dylan Strome 44. Bo Horvat 45. Kevin Hayes 46. Phillip Danault 47. Jack Hughes 48. Filip Chytil 49. Roope Hintz 50. Jordan Staal

Left Wing

Timo Meier, SJS - Two-for-two on surprises, eh? Meier grades out as the top left wing in my projections as the benficiary of a good line, good team, and very strong individual metrics. He scores a high percentage of his goals around the goalmouth, so his expected goal total projects to remain very high. He ranks significantly lower in Yahoo’s default rankings, so sit awhile on him and make sure to thank me later for stealing a top player in a mid-round. Brady Tkachuk, OTT - The Senators may be in for a tough season, but the younger Tkachuk will be a major bright spot for Ottawa’s present and future. He’s another one that will be a steal in mid-rounds. If you miss out on Meier, take Tkachuk. Alex Ovechkin, WSH Jamie Benn, DAL Taylor Hall, NJD Jason Zucker, MIN Anders Lee, NYI Jonathan Huberdeau, FLA James van Riemsdyk, PHI Jonathan Marchessault, VGK Viktor Arvidsson, NSH Evander Kane, SJS Zach Parise, MIN Gabriel Landeskog, COL Jeff Skinner, BUF - Coming off a 40-goal season, Skinner projects really well again this season. Talent-wise, he is clearly the Sabres’ top left winger. That won’t necessarily get him back on Eichel’s line, however, as they have yet to be put together at even strength this preseason. Still, he edges out the competition on his team at his position in the rankings (barely...) Nino Niederreiter, CAR Jake Guentzel, PIT Victor Olofsson, BUF - What? Is it Sabres bias? Well...actually...no. I just come up with the algorithm, and the numbers tell me the rest. My model projects Olofsson so high because of his metrics and production at the NHL level, his projected spot on Eichel’s wing, and his likely spot on the Sabres’ top power-play unit. My advice would be to wait until the final rounds to take a flyer on him if you don’t have Sabres fans in your league, or, if you do, hope they happen to miss this post! Let that be a lesson to never miss a post from us again. Chris Kreider, NYR Artemi Panarin, NYR Jaden Schwartz, STL Tyler Bertuzzi, DET Leon Draisaitl, EDM Claude Giroux, PHI Matthew Tkachuk, CGY

26. Rickard Rakell 27. Nikolaj Ehlers 28. Brad Marchand 29. Andreas Johnsson 30. Andreas Athanasiou 31. Alex DeBrincat 32. Johnny Gaudreau 33. Kyle Connor 34. Max Pacioretty 35. Alex Galchenyuk 36. Jake DeBrusk 37. Micheal Ferland 38. Zach Hyman 39. Gustav Nyquist 40. Tyler Johnson 41. Mikael Granlund 42. Frank Vatrano 43. Tanner Pearson 44. Jonathan Drouin 45. Tomas Tatar 46. Nick Ritchie 47. Jakub Vrana 48. Brandon Saad 49. Clayton Keller 50. Oskar Lindblom

Right Wing

26. Dustin Brown 27. Tyler Toffoli 28. Mikko Rantanen 29. Elias Lindholm 30. Jakub Voracek 31. Patrik Laine 32. Conor Garland 33. Tom Wilson 34. William Nylander 35. Craig Smith 36. Kevin Labanc 37. Jakob Silfverberg 38. James Neal 39. Pavel Buchnevich 40. Andrew Shaw 41. Oliver Bjorkstrand 42. Wayne Simmonds 43. Teuvo Teravainen 44. Dominik Kahun 45. Ondrej Palat 46. T. J. Oshie 47. Alex Tuch 48. J.T. Miller 49. Josh Anderson 50. Jeff Carter

Defense

Roman Josi, NSH - Josi takes the top spot at defense thanks to an offensively improved Nashville team. With P.K. Subban leaving town, Josi no longer has competition for quarterbacking the first power play unit and free rein to rack up the additional points as a result. Brent Burns, SJS John Carlson, WSH Erik Karlsson, SJS Dougie Hamilton, CAR Victor Hedman, TBL Seth Jones, CBJ Morgan Rielly, TOR Kris Letang, PIT Jacob Trouba, NYR Mark Giordano, CGY Alex Edler, VAN Alex Pietrangelo, STL Erik Gustafsson, CHI Ryan Pulock, NYI Shea Weber, MON Mikhail Sergachev, TBL John Klingberg, DAL Darnell Nurse, EDM Thomas Chabot, OTT Torey Krug, BOS Oscar Klefbom, EDM Shayne Gostisbehere, PHI Zach Werenski, CBJ Tyson Barrie, COL

26. Josh Morrissey 27. Matt Dumba 28. P.K. Subban 29. Shea Theodore 30. Tyler Myers 31. Ryan Ellis 32. Duncan Keith 33. Aaron Ekblad 34. Rasmus Dahlin 35. Michal Kempny 36. Rasmus Ristolainen 37. Brent Seabrook 38. Drew Doughty 39. Erik Johnson 40. Sami Vatanen 41. Radko Gudas 42. Nate Schmidt 43. Ivan Provorov 44. Jakob Chychrun 45. Justin Schultz 46. Oliver Ekman-Larsson 47. Jaccob Slavin 48. Ryan Suter 49. Jeff Petry 50. Marc-Edouard Vlasic

Goaltender

John Gibson, ANA - If Anaheim gets back into the playoffs this season, it will be because of Gibson. His advanced goaltending metrics are unparalled by any of the others at his position, and should lead to a bunch of saves above average. Of course wins play a major role in fantasy goaltending, and that may be the one thing working against his case. Still, Gibson stands at the top of the hill. Pekka Rinne, NSH Ben Bishop, DAL Andrei Vasilevskiy, TBL Devan Dubnyk, MIN Antti Raanta, ARI Frederik Andersen, TOR Sergei Bobrovsky, FLA Connor Hellebuyck, WPG Marc-Andre Fleury, VGK Philipp Grubauer, COL Joonas Korpisalo, CBJ Robin Lehner, CHI Carey Price, MON Cory Schneider, NJD Matt Murray, PIT Carter Hart, PHI Semyon Varlamov, NYI Martin Jones, SJS Carter Hutton, BUF - The impending starter for the Buffalo Sabres, Hutton doesn’t quite project in the top half of the league for fantasy purposes. If he can return to his 2017-2018 form, however, that can certainly change. Jordan Binnington, STL Brayden Holtby, WSH Tuukka Rask, BOS Craig Anderson, OTT Jimmy Howard, DET

26. Jonathan Quick 27. Henrik Lundqvist 28. Jacob Markstrom 29. David Rittich 30. Petr Mrazek 31. Mike Smith 32. Darcy Kuemper 33. Jake Allen 34. Keith Kinkaid 35. Anders NIlsson 36. Cam Talbot 37. Juuse Saros 38. Ryan Miller 39. Jack Campbell 40. Alex Stalock 41. Anton Khudobin 42. Linus Ullmark 43. Corey Crawford 44. James Riemer 45. Curtis McElhinney 46. Jonathan Bernier 47. Alexandar Georgiev 48. Casey DeSmith 49. Aaron Dell 50. Malcolm Subban