2026-27 NHL Fantasy Hockey Rankings: Top 10 Left Wingers

With the 2026-27 NHL season right around the corner, The Hockey News is counting down the top 10 fantasy players at each position. Today's focus is at the left wing position.

Left wingers seem to represent a disproportionate number of elite goal scorers, boasting five players that posted 40-plus (Kirill Kaprizov, Jason Robertson, Cole Caufield, Cutter Gauthier, Filip Forsberg) last season.

Kaprizov is at the top of the list as the most consistent performer with a league-best 1.24 points per game among left wingers, while Robertson’s resurgent season vaults him back into the top three. 

Brady Tkachuk will draw a lot of debate, and no other player’s fantasy value on this list will fluctuate as much as his depending on your fantasy league’s settings. In leagues that value hits, shots and even face-off wins, Tkachuk makes a strong argument to be not only the best left winger but a top-five fantasy player. 

Players are ranked by the position they played the most often last season while considering traditional fantasy scoring categories, including goals, assists, power-play points, shots on goal, penalty minutes, blocks, and hits. 

If you’re looking for points, there’s no better left winger than Kaprizov, who has the most consistent 40-goal, 100-point potential. The emergence of Matt Boldy as an elite player will only help, as will having Quinn Hughes quarterbacking the power play for the Minnesota Wild for a full season.

It was a strong bounce-back season for Robertson in a contract year, who scored 40 goals for the first time three seasons and averaged a career-high 20:15 of ice time per game.

The one question everyone has will involve team chemistry: Will Robertson’s protracted contract negotiation, a dance we can expect again next off-season, hurt the team’s chemistry? Or will another contract year motivate him to post even better numbers?

No player has a bigger disparity in fantasy value than Tkachuk in banger leagues (ones that count penalty minutes, blocks, and hits) and non-banger leagues. According to NaturalStatTrick, over the past three seasons, Tkachuk ranks 65th with 0.93 goals per 60 minutes and 429th (!) with a 7.69 shooting percentage out of 517 forwards at 5-on-5 (min. 500 TOI).

Even though he generates a league-best 12.03 shots on goal per 60 minutes. He’s a low-efficiency player but he makes up for it with huge volume in nearly every category, which counts for a lot in fantasy. The question is whether the move to Florida decreases his role or emphasizes his strengths with their style of play.

He finally did it. Caufield notched his first 50-goal season and ranked second only to Nathan MacKinnon in even-strength goals (40).

If there was anybody who could unlock Caufield’s massive potential despite his smaller size, of course it would be Martin St-Louis. The drawback to Caufield’s fantasy value is the emphasis on goals and shots with little fantasy production elsewhere.

Connor is as consistent as they come as the league’s top scoring left winger with 321 goals in 675 games since his first full NHL season in 2017-18. The Winnipeg Jets may be a one-line team but it’s an extraordinarily good first line, and even if significant roster changes are coming between the pipes, Connor’s fantasy value is unlikely impacted significantly.

The 29-year-old's biggest fantasy contribution will be in goals and shots but, curiously enough, offers few power-play goals. Among the 36 players who have scored at least 150 times over the past five seasons, Connor ranks 10th in goals (192) but 32nd in power-play goals (35). 

Guentzel has been quite brilliant in his two seasons with the Tampa Bay Lightning so far (168 points in 161 games), seeing his shooting percentage spike on a team with more offensive talent and setting career highs.

The Lightning lean on their top players a lot, and even if the argument against them is that Father Time is undefeated, they’ve managed to defy the odds.

As of this moment, Gauthier remains unsigned and you wonder how a talented roster with a botched cap structure can recover after all the good vibes from last season. Although, Joel Quenneville has gotten consistent results out of his teams throughout his career.

Gauthier is an elite goal-scorer with massive shot volume, and even with a regression could still see him post similar 40-goal, 300-shot numbers if his ice time increases from last season. 

We’re counting peripheral stats on this list but, realistically, Forsberg is unlikely to be drafted ahead of the other second-tier players because of the lack of name recognition and potential upside.

Over the past three seasons, only two players have managed to register at least 100 goals, 400 shots and 400 hits: Alex Ovechkin and Forsberg. (Brady Tkachuk and Tom Wilson come close). Forsberg’s an oft-overlooked player in fantasy but he’s consistent and in his best seasons offer 40-goal, 300-shot, 150-hit potential.

The major drawback? The Nashville Predators aren’t very good and the Central Division is tough. 

There’s a potential 100-point season in Keller’s career, but low shot totals and a pretty deep Utah Mammoth roster of talented forwards with many mouths to feed may make that difficult. Regardless, Keller has been a point-per-game player for five seasons now, and he’s one of 19 skaters to have scored at least 400 points in that time.  

Peter Laviolette is re-united with Panarin, who scored a career-high 120 points under him in 2023-24 with the New York Rangers. Even if the Los Angeles Kings continue to play their plodding, suffocating style, Panarin has shown that he can still put up at least a point per game and showed good chemistry with Adrian Kempe.

An 80-point season should be easily attainable in a weak Pacific Division.  

Honorable Mentions: Brandon Hagel, Tampa Bay Lightning; Alex DeBrincat, Detroit Red Wings

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