Fantasy hockey questions, answered
How the rankings work, what the numbers mean, and what they cannot tell you. For the full calculation see the methodology.
How are fantasy hockey rankings calculated on this site?
- Players are ranked by value over replacement (VORP). Each player's fantasy value is calculated from his actual statistics — either by multiplying each stat by the league's scoring weight, or by summing per-category z-scores for categories leagues. That value is then compared against the replacement-level player at the same position, defined as the Nth-best player at that position where N is the roster slots at that position multiplied by the number of teams in the league. The difference is the player's VORP, and the board is sorted by it. Nothing is hand-adjusted after computation.
What is VORP in fantasy hockey?
- VORP stands for value over replacement player. It measures how much more fantasy value a player produces than the best player at his position who is freely available — typically someone on waivers. It matters because raw totals hide positional scarcity: forty points from a centre and forty points from a defenceman are not worth the same, because a replacement-level centre is much easier to find than a replacement-level defenceman. VORP makes that difference visible by measuring every player against his own position's baseline.
Are these rankings projections for next season?
- No. These rankings describe production that has already happened. They contain no forecast, no ageing curve, no regression to the mean, and no adjustment for a player who has changed team or line. A player who missed half a season is ranked on what he actually produced, not on what he might have produced healthy. Treat the board as an accurate record of past value and as one input among several when projecting forward.
How often is the data updated?
- Statistics and the schedule refresh nightly during the NHL season, and rankings are recomputed once the new statistics have landed, so the board reflects the most recently completed games. During the off-season the board holds the final numbers from the most recent completed season and is labelled with that season.
Where does NHL Fantasy Hub get its data?
- All statistics, rosters and schedules come from the NHL's public statistics and schedule APIs. The site holds ten seasons of history, back to 2016-17. NHL Fantasy Hub is an independent site and is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by the National Hockey League.
Is NHL Fantasy Hub free to use?
- Yes. Every page, ranking and tool on the site is free, and none of it requires an account or a login.
How are goalies ranked, and why is workload shown?
- Goalies are ranked by the same value-over-replacement method as skaters, using wins, saves, goals against, shutouts and save percentage. The goalie board additionally shows workload share — the goalie's games played as a fraction of his team's games — because in most fantasy formats how often a goalie starts matters more than his rate statistics. A .915 save percentage across 22 games is usually worth less than .905 across 55, and rate statistics alone hide that entirely.
What is an off-night in fantasy hockey, and why does it matter?
- An off-night is a night when relatively few NHL teams play. They matter in daily-lineup leagues because a player who plays on a quiet night is far more likely to fit into an open roster slot, whereas on a busy night you may have more players than slots and have to bench someone. NHL Fantasy Hub derives off-nights from the actual schedule in the range you are viewing — a night at or below the median game count for that range, and strictly below the busiest night — rather than assuming fixed nights of the week, because which nights are quiet changes from week to week.
Why does a player have separate regular-season and playoff stat lines?
- Because they are different facts and merging them would be misleading. A four-point playoff run and a four-point regular season are not the same achievement, and adding them together would flatter every player whose team went deep while penalising nobody. Each stat row on a player page is labelled with both its season and whether it covers the regular season or the playoffs.
Why does a player page show no statistics?
- Most often because the player has not recorded a stat line in the season being displayed — a player who was in the minors, injured all year, or who has retired will have a roster entry but no statistics for that season. Statistics also only appear once the NHL has published them, so a player who has just been called up may show a roster entry before his first stat line arrives.
Which fantasy league formats are supported?
- Both points leagues, where each statistic is worth a fixed number of points, and categories leagues, where teams are compared category by category. Because replacement level depends on how many teams are in the league and how many roster slots each position has, those settings change the rankings — a player's value is genuinely different in an 8-team league than in a 16-team one.
How are players who were traded mid-season handled?
- A traded player's season is attributed using dated roster spells derived from the games he actually appeared in, so the site can show which teams he played for and when. This is a lower bound rather than exact roster membership: a player acquired at the trade deadline who does not dress for two weeks will appear to have arrived later than he did, because an appearance is the only dated evidence the public NHL data provides for past seasons.
Still stuck on a term? The glossary defines the statistics and abbreviations used across the site.