2026-27 NHL Fantasy Hockey Rankings: Top 10 Right 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 center position.

Nikita Kucherov and David Pastrnak separate themselves from the pack, combining elite scoring with massive shot volume and power-play production. 

While there are other right wingers who have the potential to score 100 points, none of them are the focal points of their team’s offense like Kucherov and Pastrnak. The rise of dual-position eligibility has somewhat muted its impact but right wing remains a relatively thin position compared to the others. 

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. 

There is no debate. Nobody is better than the three-time Art Ross winner at this position in fantasy. After missing the entire 2020-21 regular season due to hip surgery, only Connor McDavid has produced more assists and averaged more points per game than Nikita Kucherov of the Tampa Bay Lightning.  

Nobody does more with less than David Pastrnak, who has scored at least 100 points in four consecutive seasons when no other Bruin has scored more than 68 points in any single year during that time. Though his shot volume has curiously declined, it has not made much of an impact on his overall production.

We’ve yet to see a healthy Mikko Rantanen in a full season with the Dallas Stars, whose point-per-game averages didn’t decline as much as expected after getting traded from the Colorado Avalanche. The big Finn is capable of putting up 100 points, but there are a lot of mouths to feed on the Stars, which hampers Rantanen’s fantasy value.

The elevated 18.4 shooting percentage should raise eyebrows, but playing significant minutes on arguably the best offensive team in the league substantially raises Martin Necas’ floor. Nathan MacKinnon either scored or assisted on 42 of Necas’ 100 points last season, and they’re expected to drive much of the Avalanche's offense again this year. 

The Minnesota Wild were the only team last season to feature two wingers who scored 40 goals, and Boldy’s finally getting his flowers following his breakout season.

The raw ability and underlying numbers always suggested Boldy was capable, and with a full season of Quinn Hughes running the power play and — perhaps — an upgrade at center, a 100-point campaign is not out of the question.

Not many right wingers offer 40-goal, 100-point potential, which is why Nylander rounds out this second tier even though the team surrounding him has gotten worse. He’s been remarkably consistent, with Nylander ranking fifth in points (428) and sixth in points per game (1.09) among right wingers on this list. 

The 57-goal season was certainly the anomaly – he shot 24.5 percent (!) that year – but Reinhart is the Florida Panthers’ best and most consistent goal scorer. In a base-case scenario, expect Reinhart to provide 30 goals and 80 points. He’s also played at least 95 percent of his regular season games up until last season.

Reinhart and Aleksander Barkov are heavily relied upon in all situations, ensuring he’ll get plenty of minutes and opportunities to produce. 

Ice time and health will be the biggest factors whether or not Tkachuk can score 100 points, and it’s been three seasons since he did so.

The curious part about Tkachuk’s fantasy value is that he delivered fewer hits per game than his career average (1.38) in six of his 10 seasons, which means there’s a lot of variance from year to year; he had 68 hits in 2022-23 then exploded for 151 hits in the following season. 

There’s a chance Marner flirts with 100 points again, but it would require him to shoot the puck a lot more and play more minutes, and neither are required of him on a pretty deep Vegas Golden Knights team. Marner is a consistent point producer but his lack of shot volume, penalty minutes, blocks, and hits prevents him from being an elite all-round fantasy asset. 

Guenther was one of three 40-goal scorers under 23 (Macklin Celebrini, Wyatt Johnston) last season and it is absolutely no fluke. Per Natural Stat Trick, Guenther ranked third among forwards with 1.64 goals per 60 minutes and 11th with 9.79 shots per 60 minutes at 5-on-5 (min. 500 TOI).

Imagine what Guenther can do when he gets more than 17 minutes per game. Among players in this third tier, Guenther has the most potential to move up to Tier 2. 

Honorable Mentions: Juraj Slafkovsky, Montreal Canadiens; Lucas Raymond, Detroit Red Wings; Adrian Kempe, Los Angeles Kings; Kirill Marchenko, Columbus Blue Jackets

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