Standing six-foot-seven, Lian Bichsel delivers league-leading physicality and rising offensive production, making the Dallas blueliner a high-impact sleeper for managers seeking a dominant categorical edge this season.
Fantasy hockey managers digging through the back end of their draft boards for defensemen shouldn't overlook former 18th overall pick back in 2022, Lian Bichsel.
The 22-year-old Swiss product has quietly built one of the most unique statistical profiles on the Dallas blue line, and after two injury-shortened seasons, a healthy 2026-27 could finally let that profile show up in full.
If you play in a league that counts hits, Bichsel will be the ace up your sleeve. Even outside that format, he projects to be one of the most overlooked players at the position.
At six-foot-seven, Bichsel is known as the most physical player on the Stars' roster, and the numbers back that up in dramatic fashion. As a rookie in 2024-25, he averaged 16.4 hits per 60 minutes and led the team with 155 hits despite playing just 38 regular-season games, a pace that projected to roughly 334 hits over a full 82-game season. He backed that up with continued physicality in the postseason, dishing out 21 hits per 60 minutes across 18 playoff games.
Bichsel steadily raised his scoring production before an injury cut his season short. Through his first 25 games of 2025-26, he'd posted three points and a plus-6 rating to go with 85 hits, and his average ice time had climbed from 14:53 as a rookie to 15:40 as he settled into a bigger role on Dallas's third pairing.
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That progress was interrupted on November 30, when Bichsel absorbed a hit from Ottawa's Fabian Zetterlund and went awkwardly into the boards, sustaining a lower-body injury that required surgery and sidelined him for six to eight weeks. He didn't return to game action until late February.
Despite the setback, Bichsel's underlying game continued to trend in the right direction once healthy. He notched his first career multi-goal game in a 6-1 win over Vancouver on March 2 and later scored the game-winning goal in a high-scoring affair at Pittsburgh on March 28. Even after missing 32 games on the year, he still finished second on the team with 139 hits, finishing top 16 in the league, and a full healthy season could see him lead the NHL outright.
There's real potential for Bichsel to develop into a Jacob Trouba-type defenseman for Fantasy as he posts consistent plus ratings, chips in offense in the range of 20 to 30 points, and adds serious value in categories like hits and blocked shots.
In hit-counting leagues, Bichsel is a legitimate league-winner and even in standard formats, he's a low-cost, capable depth defenseman worth stashing, and one who is likely to still be sitting on the waiver wire in shallower leagues.
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