Cutter Gauthier and Sebastian Aho are Blowing Past Draft Expectations, Appearing to be Early League Winners

Roughly 20 games into every team's season, the fantasy hockey landscape is already looking very different from the one managers drafted back in the fall. Some players have lived up to their price tags, others have fallen well short of the expectations attached to them, and a select few have blown past them entirely.

Every year brings a handful of early-season surprises, but the biggest winners are the ones who cost almost nothing at the draft table and are now delivering first-round production. Two of those players were going outside the top 40 in most leagues, have not only outperformed their draft positions by leaps and bounds but have climbed into the top ten in most formats. 

Whether you were bold enough to grab them or watched them go off the board while you waited, their starts raise the same question of how much of this is sustainable, and what does it mean for the rest of the season?

Anaheim entered the season with heavy pressure on its young stars, who were expected to live up to the hype after earning massive paydays. Leo Carlsson and Cutter Gauthier were going high in most drafts, and some doubted whether they could justify those draft slots. Both have done so, and then some.

Carlsson has played about to his draft position, with six goals and 20 assists for 26 points in 19 games, and has been a solid top-35 player. Gauthier, meanwhile, has been sensational. Drafted outside the top 45 picks, he ranks inside the top eight in most fantasy leagues this season. His goal scoring has climbed to another level, with 16 goals and seven assists for 23 points in 18 games.

No one expects Gauthier to keep scoring at nearly a goal per game, but he is on pace to surpass his career-high of 41 goals from last season and could make the jump to a 50-goal scorer. After just 18 games, he is already five goals shy of being halfway to last year's total.

The rest of the Ducks have stepped up as well with Carlsson expected to top last season's career-high of 67 points in 70 games and clear well over a point per game this year. Three other Ducks are also averaging better than a point per game in Beckett Sennecke and Mikael Granlund up front, who can help Gauthier maintain his pace, and Jackson LaCombe, who is maturing into his game and is on pace for a career year.

Coming off a Stanley Cup victory with nearly the entire roster returning, the Hurricanes were expected to be solid once again. Their top-line Finnish center rebounded last season to reach his fourth career 80-point campaign, and he is on pace to comfortably surpass that mark this year, reaching heights he hasn't seen before. Aho has 26 points in 19 games.

That start has taken him from a draft pick around 45th overall to a spot inside the top ten, raising the question of whether he can sustain it all season. He enters the year with strong chemistry with his usual linemate, Andrei Svechnikov, after the two went through the highest-intensity moments of Carolina's Cup run together.

Aho is also benefiting from the same kind of depth leaps that have helped Gauthier in Anaheim. Svechnikov and Logan Stankoven are each one point shy of a point per game, while Seth Jarvis and Jackson Blake have also started strong with point-per-game averages. 

With that supporting cast, Aho could clear 90 points for the first time in his career. He may not finish the year inside the top ten, but Carolina's depth makes it likely he'll finish well ahead of his draft position.

For action-packed issues, access to the entire magazine archive and a free issue, subscribe to The Hockey News at THN.com/free. Get the latest news and trending stories by subscribing to our newsletter here. And share your thoughts by commenting below the article on THN.com or creating your own post in our community forum.