10 Fantasy Hockey Sleepers You Need on Your Draft Board

With training camps opening and puck drop closing in, fantasy managers are putting the finishing touches on their draft boards. 

While the top of the board tends to take care of itself, championships are often won or lost in the middle and late rounds, where a well-timed sleeper pick can outproduce his draft slot by a wide margin. 

Whether it's a player working his way back from injury, a young talent still searching for a role, or a veteran flying under the radar after a down year, these are 10 names worth targeting before your league catches on.

For fantasy managers with injury reserve spots, Terry is one of the best stash candidates in the league. He'll be sidelined until mid-November or December, but that opens a window to roster a piece of Anaheim's lethal top line, centered around Leo Carlsson and Cutter Gauthier, at a fraction of the usual cost. 

Despite playing just 61 games last season due to injury, Terry still finished at a near point-per-game pace with 57 points, landing inside the top 140 in most fantasy formats. Given that production, along with the missed time, some platforms now have him valued outside the top 300 heading into this season. 

The 28-year-old Denver native is entering his prime alongside two emerging stars with plenty left to prove, and there's a real chance he returns to form as a point-per-game player. For leagues without injury reserve spots, he's still a name worth monitoring closely as his return date approaches.

The 28-year-old, hard-nosed defenseman is expected to miss the first six games of the season after being suspended for a two-handed, baseball-style slash on Buffalo Sabres forward Zach Benson. 

When he returns, many may have already forgotten just how strong a season McAvoy was putting together last year, finishing with 11 goals and 50 assists for 61 points in 69 games while staying in the Norris Trophy conversation for stretches of the season. He's recovering from facial surgery for a linear fracture of his jaw and is fully expected to heal without lingering issues. 

Between the suspension and the surgery, McAvoy's average draft position has slipped to around the 99th pick, with some platforms ranking him as low as 145th overall. That's a notable discount given the names he's currently going behind, including Shayne Gostisbehere, Cole Hutson, John Carlson and Brock Faber, all of whom he has a real chance to surpass if he picks up where he left off last season.

Once back and healthy, McAvoy has the profile of a strong number-two, or even number-one, fantasy defenseman.

Still carrying first-round prospect pedigree, Kulich is going entirely unnoticed in fantasy circles. He's rated outside the top 800 players and rostered in just four percent of Yahoo leagues. 

Yet Daily Faceoff currently has Kulich centering the top line with Tage Thompson and Zach Benson heading into next season, though other outlets haven't penciled him back into the lineup just yet. Kulich is expected to be ready for the start of the season after missing the majority of 2025-26 due to a serious blood clot issue that required surgery. 

Before the injury, he'd shown real flashes, recording 24 points in 62 games and adding five points in 12 games this past season. If he lands a middle-six role and stays healthy, Kulich has the tools to be a 40-plus point player, and he'd cost nothing to acquire. The smart play is to wait for more clarity out of Sabres training camp on where he lands in the lineup, but he's a name worth keeping on the radar.

After leading the Flames in scoring this past season, Coronato could very well do it again. The 23-year-old, a former 13th overall pick back in 2021, continues to trend in the right direction, putting together back-to-back 45-point seasons and earning a spot on Team USA at the World Championships, where he chipped in a goal and two assists for three points in eight games. 

The hope is that experience helps him take another step forward as a former top-13 prospect with real pedigree, potentially pushing past 50 or even 60 points this season. He's rostered in just seven percent of Yahoo leagues and sits around 235th overall on most platforms, making him an easy sleeper candidate who could climb into the top 150 with a strong season.

As the Hurricanes advanced further through their Stanley Cup run, more and more people started to notice the undrafted defenseman who had claimed a starting job on Carolina's top pairing. After averaging over 20 minutes a night during the regular season, Carolina leaned into him even more in the playoffs, pushing his average up to 22.5 minutes per night. 

That trust let Chatfield showcase his defensive game while also chipping in offensively. He finished the regular season with 17 points in 72 games, a 0.24 points-per-game pace, before that number jumped to 0.42 in the postseason on eight points in 19 games. Chatfield earned plenty of praise around the hockey world as a genuine standout on a championship roster, yet in fantasy circles he's still going almost entirely undrafted, sitting outside the top 400 players and rostered in zero percent of Yahoo leagues. 

If he can carry his playoff form into this season and produce in the range of 30-plus points, that would put him in the same scoring conversation as defensemen like Philip Broberg, Simon Nemec, Justin Faulk and Jacob Trouba. He also brings added value depending on your league's format, having tied for the team lead in blocked shots during the playoffs with 34 and finishing the regular season tied for 33rd among defensemen in plus/minus at plus-15, ahead of names like Broberg, Charlie McAvoy and Matthew Schaefer. 

With basically no draft cost attached, Chatfield is worth monitoring early in the season as a potential waiver-wire pickup who could turn into a legitimate depth option on your fantasy blue line.

After a 57-point breakout in 2024-25, Johnson cratered last season, managing just seven goals and 15 assists for 22 points over 76 games with a minus-8 rating. With a full offseason behind him, there's real regression-to-the-mean upside, and Johnson is going nearly outside the top 300 players. 

The 23-year-old is also entering a contract year and will be looking to reclaim a top-six role. He'll compete with Conor Garland on the right wing, but with center locked up, his clearest path is left wing. 

He just needs to beat out Cole Sillinger, who's posted three straight 30-point seasons and hasn't presented to have the same offensive ceiling as Johnson. Expect Johnson to win the job and post a bounce-back season, with 50 to 60 points being a real possibility.

After a solid 58-point campaign this past season, Bertuzzi sees his line get stronger with the addition of Patrick Kane alongside Bedard. The team's top line will be lethal when healthy, and Bertuzzi stands to benefit greatly in a role similar to what Gabe Vilardi enjoys in Winnipeg alongside Mark Scheifele and Kyle Connor. 

Some are worried about how Bertuzzi will fare if Kane, who is 37 entering the season, goes down with an injury. But Bertuzzi was solid enough with Bedard alone to put up nearly 60 points last season, and with Kane joining the unit, he could get back to numbers resembling his career-best 2021-22 campaign in Detroit, where he posted nearly a point-per-game average with 62 points in 68 games. 

A near point-per-game pace is a real possibility for Bertuzzi, and he's ranked as low as outside the top 226 players. Still, be on your toes as his average draft position is as high as inside the top 140 picks, a range that's fair for a potential 65-plus point player, which would mark a career year for the 31-year-old Sudbury, Ontario native.

Through his first 36 games last season, the 28-year-old Minnesota native was a standout on offense, racking up 18 points while averaging just under 16 minutes of ice time heading into the Christmas break. 

After the holidays, Colorado finally gave him a real opportunity, bumping his ice time past 19 minutes a night, and Malinski kept producing, adding 22 points over his final 46 games. It was a breakout year, which raises the question of how much further he can realistically climb. 

Some outlets are skeptical, ranking him outside the top 240 picks and expecting a step back, with his average draft position sitting around 140th, behind names like Devon Toews and Brent Burns, both of whom finished with fewer points than Malinski did last season. Burns is aging and Toews should bounce back, but neither fact erases what Malinski accomplished. 

With Toews and Makar anchoring the top pairing, Malinski should continue to shoulder heavy minutes on the second unit alongside Brett Kulak, and there's little reason to think he can't sustain last year's 0.50 points-per-game pace, which would make him a 40-plus point player again. All signs point to Malinski being a bargain compared to the defensemen going ahead of him.

If you play in a league that counts hits, the 22-year-old Swiss product will be the ace up your sleeve. Even outside of that format, the former 18th overall pick projects to be one of the most overlooked players at the defense position. 

He steadily raised his scoring production before an injury cut his season short, on pace for just under 15 points, and with a full offseason to get healthy, there's real potential for Bichsel to develop into a Jacob Trouba-type defenseman, someone who posts consistent plus ratings, chips in offense in the range of 20 to 30 points, and adds serious value in categories like hits. 

Despite missing 32 games last season, he still finished top 16 in the league with 139 hits, and a full healthy season could see him lead the NHL outright. In hit-counting leagues, Bichsel is a potential league-winner; in standard formats, he's a low-cost, capable depth defenseman worth stashing, and likely available on the waiver wire.

After dominating the NCAA and making the jump to his first pro season this past year, the 22-year-old Wisconsin native remains the Oilers' most highly-touted prospect. His rookie campaign in Edmonton wasn't what many were hoping for, as Howard finished with just five points in 29 games. 

But it was his first taste of pro hockey, and after an appearance at the World Championships with Team USA and a full offseason to adjust to the pace of the game, he looks poised to take a real step forward. There's plenty of runway for the former 2022 first-round pick, with only Colton Dach and Vasily Podkolzin ahead of him on the left wing. 

If Howard can build on his roughly 15-point pace from last season, catch fire early and pass a near 40-point player like Podkolzin on the depth chart, he could emerge as an exciting top-six option alongside two of the sport's best players in McDavid and Leon Draisaitl, finally living up to his first-round pedigree.

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