Fantasy hockey rankings built for your league, not a standard one

Most rankings lists are built for a league nobody plays in. This one isn’t. Enter your scoring settings and every player is revalued against them, so a hits-and-blocks league and a straight points league produce genuinely different boards — not the same list with a couple of names shuffled.

Toggle between categories and points formats, switch between Yahoo and ESPN ADP, filter to skaters or goalies, and export the whole thing when you’re done. Projections are updated through the preseason, with the last update stamped above the table.

What VAR actually measures

VAR is the number the board sorts on. It’s a value-above-replacement figure: how much more a player produces than a freely available replacement at his position, measured in your scoring settings.

That’s why it doesn’t track points. A defenceman who racks up blocks and shots on the power play can outrank a higher-scoring forward in a categories league, because the replacement-level forward is much easier to find than the replacement-level defenceman. Sorting by points tells you who scores the most. Sorting by VAR tells you who’s hardest to replace — and drafting is a replacement problem, not a scoring one.

Change your scoring settings and VAR recalculates. That’s the whole point of the tool.

Finding value with ΔADP

Next to VAR is ΔADP, the gap between where a player is being drafted and where he ranks in your settings. A positive number means the market is drafting him later than he’s worth to you. A negative number means he’s going earlier than your board says he should.

This is the column to sort by once you’ve set your scoring. It’s not a list of sleepers in the generic sense — it’s a list of players the consensus is mispricing for your specific league. A defenceman going in the fifth round in a standard Yahoo league may be a third-round player in a league that counts blocks, and ΔADP is where that shows up.

Two things to keep in mind: a large positive ΔADP on a player nobody else in your league rates still means you can wait on him, and ADP itself lags news. Check the line combinations and starting goalie pages before you talk yourself into a bargain that exists because of a camp injury.

Yahoo and ESPN ADP

Switch the ADP source between Yahoo and ESPN. This matters more than most managers expect — the two platforms have different default settings, different player pools and different draft populations, and the same player can sit two rounds apart between them.

Use the source that matches where you actually play. If you’re in leagues on both, run the board twice; the ΔADP column will surface different names each time.

Categories vs. points

The Categories League toggle values players across the full category set, so peripheral production carries real weight and multi-category contributors climb. Scarcity drives everything, and the gaps between positions are wide.

The Points League toggle collapses everything to your point values. The board flattens, positional scarcity matters less, and raw production per game plus power-play usage does most of the work.

If you’re unsure why a player moved 40 spots when you flipped the toggle, the stat columns will tell you — check his hits, blocks and shots against his point total.

The Top 200 cheat sheet

Cheat Sheet turns your customized board into an interactive Top 200 you can actually draft from. It carries your scoring settings, so it isn’t a generic list — it’s your board, tiered and ready for draft night.

Keep it open on a second screen during your draft, or print it if that’s how you work.

Export to CSV

Export pulls the full table, your settings included, into a CSV. If you build your own spreadsheets, run your own tiers, or want to merge these projections against another source, this is the fastest route in.

Take your settings straight into a mock draft

The Mock Draft button carries your scoring settings directly into the NHL Fantasy Hockey Mock Draft Tool, so you’re practicing against the same values you just built rather than a generic board.

That’s the full workflow, and it’s worth doing in order: set your scoring, sort by VAR, check ΔADP for the players your league is mispricing, then go run three mocks and find out whether that plan survives a draft room. If your targets are gone every time, they weren’t value — they were consensus.

What’s in the table

Every skater carries projected GP, PTS, G, A, +/-, PIM, EVG, EVA, GWG, PPG, PPA, PPP, SOG, ATOI, FOW, BLK and HIT. Goalies have their own table with the categories that matter for the position.

Sort on any column. Filter by C, LW, RW or D. Search by player or team. If your league counts faceoff wins and nobody else in it has noticed, sorting by FOW takes about a second.

FAQ

Are the fantasy hockey rankings free? Yes. Free to use, including the scoring customization, cheat sheet and CSV export.

What does VAR mean in fantasy hockey? VAR is value above replacement — how much more a player produces than a freely available replacement at his position, calculated in your league’s scoring settings. It’s a better draft guide than raw points because it accounts for how hard a player is to replace, which is what actually decides drafts.

Can I customize the rankings for my league’s scoring? Yes. Open Scoring settings and enter your categories or point values, and every player is revalued against them. The rankings, VAR figures and cheat sheet all update to match.

Do you have separate rankings for points leagues and categories leagues? Yes. Toggle between Categories League and Points League at the top of the tool. The two produce substantially different boards, so make sure you’re on the right one.

Which ADP do you use? Both Yahoo and ESPN, switchable. Use the one matching the platform your league is on, since the same player often goes at meaningfully different spots between them.

What does ΔADP mean? It’s the gap between a player’s ADP and his rank in your settings. Positive means he’s being drafted later than he’s worth to your league; negative means he’s going earlier than your board justifies.

Can I export the rankings? Yes. Export downloads the full table as a CSV with your custom settings applied.

How often are the projections updated? Regularly through the offseason and preseason, with the last update date shown above the table.

Can I use these rankings in a mock draft? Yes. The Mock Draft button carries your scoring settings into the mock draft tool so you draft against the same values.