As part of Fantasy Life’s 2024 Fantasy Hockey Draft Kit, Geoff Ulrich has broken down his 2024 Fantasy Hockey Breakout Players:

Last week we released the full version 2024 Fantasy Hockey Draft Kitincluding the overall ranking of the top 150 players.

Many of those top players will receive a lot of attention and analysis before the season starts, making the drafting advantage a little harder to capitalize on in those early rounds. Ranks can help us prepare for concepts, but they also don’t tell the whole story. If drafters know which players have the best upside, or the ability to exceed their current ADP (Average Draft Position) by a wide margin, we can make more informed decisions when faced with multiple players for a pick.

Before we get into it today, check out our positional rankings for the following:

Today we’re going to focus exclusively on those breakout players who have the upside to potentially blow their draft-day ADPs out of the water this year and return tremendous fantasy value.

2024 Fantasy Hockey Breakout Candidates

Wyatt Johnston, C, Dallas Stars (Yahoo ADP: 47)

Still just 21, Johnston is entering his third full season with the Stars and looks like a player on the cusp of putting up big numbers. Despite often playing on the second or third line last season, Johnston managed to post a career-high 65 points, increasing his total from his rookie year to 41 points.

Johnston is a versatile player and now looks like he will start the season on Dallas’ first line following the retirement of Joe Pavelski. If we’re being honest, Johnston had already replaced Pavelski in the Stars’ top six in the second half of last season and impressed in the play-offs, scoring ten goals in nineteen games. However, with the veteran gone, there should also be more power play time for the third-year player who scored 85% of his points at regular strength last year.

I would expect him to develop into at least a PPG player this year and finish the year as a top-30 fantasy producer.

Logan Thompson, G, Washington Capitals (Yahoo ADP: 172)

When I was creating our goalkeeper rankings for the year, I kept feeling like I wasn’t ranking Logan Thompson high enough – even after we put him as G19 in our full-season rankings, which is about 6-7 spots higher than most people have him.

Thompson has never played more than 42 games in a season, but the former Golden Knight has appeared in 78 games over the past two seasons and has a career .912 SV% and four shutouts in 94 career starts. At 6-foot-4, he profiles as the kind of big, athletic goalie who can handle the rigors of a large workload while still putting up solid numbers.

Charlie Lindgren projects to be a 1A-type option for Washington, but he is smaller in size, has worse career stats over a similar sample size and was trashed in the playoffs last season.

Thompson should be given room to compete for the starting job and if he gets off to a good start, he could reach 55 starts and more than 30 wins, making him a prime breakout candidate for the new season.

Jake Sanderson, D, Ottawa Senators (Yahoo ADP: 196)

Sanderson plays on a team with great top talent Brady Tkachuk And Tim Stutzle and it appears he’ll be playing on the Senators’ top combination and top power-play unit to start the year. With a bigger frame (6’2″, 203 lbs) and with another year of maturity under his belt, he also profiles as a player who can handle a bigger workload and should rebuild his time-on-ice (TOI) stats improve , after playing an average of 23 minutes per game in 2023/24.

The Senators offense will need to take at least a small step forward for Sanderson to break through, but he should be able to improve on his 28 assist total from last season – and has already proven to be an above-average shooter for his position . At his current ADP, he’s the kind of player I’m willing to bet on in 2024-2025.

Gustav Forsling, D, Florida Panthers (Yahoo ADP: 93)

Forsling might be what you call a “by attrition” winner from a fantasy perspective this season. Is gone Brandon Montourwho ate up a ton of power play time for the Panthers last year, all while bringing in some Adam Boqvist As a potential replacement, Boqvist has yet to show enough consistency to earn a long-term contract or be able to play more than 52 games in a single season.

In short, the Panthers will largely replace Montour with in-house production every now and then Aaron Ekblad is likely to take over the back-end duties on the PP1, Forsling should also see an uptick in usage – and may eventually be asked to do more given Ekblad’s injury history.

Forsling has scored 41 and 39 points over the last two seasons, with only 8.7% of those points coming on the power play. If his special teams production skyrockets, he could find himself among the top 15 fantasy producers on the backend, giving him major breakout potential for 2024-2025.

Andrei Kuzmenko, RW, Calgary Flames (Yahoo ADP: 203)

Kuzmenko scored 22 goals in 72 games last year, which he split between Vancouver and Calgary. The 28-year-old’s production went south after his breakout 39-goal campaign from 2022-2023, but with Calgary lacking pure shooters, opportunities for Kuzmenko to get big minutes on the top line and power play should be there every night are. .

I expect this to be a bit of a lost season for the Flames franchise overall as they are +300 to make the playoffs now on the DraftKings Sportsbook, but unless they acquire more young talent during the season, I should Kuzmenko should have a spot at the top of the list all season.

In short, he’s a solid mid-range prospect who will likely drop further than he should in the drafts, considering he’s in a great spot to push back toward his 2022-2023 production levels.

Alex Laferriere, RW, Los Anegles Kings (Yahoo ADP: 565)

Laferriere only scored 21 points in 81 games last season, but the fact that he was able to break through the Kings’ deeper lineup and play a full season with the big club shows how much respect LA has for the 22-year-old.

The Kings depth chart is also currently working in Laferriere’s favor as they appear determined to keep LW Kevin Fiala on the second line, meaning Laferriere will start the season next to the top line Anze Kopitar And Adrian Kempe– where he also spent more of his time towards the end of last season.

Laferriere was a solid scorer in college and with his ice time likely to increase by 20% or more this season, his status as a breakout player looks strong heading into the new season.

Other names to look at:

• Owen Tippett, LW, Philadelphia Flyers
• Dylan Strome, C, Washington Capitals
• Jake DeBrusk, LW, Vancouver Canucks
• Connor Ingram, G, Utah Hockey Club

More 2024 Fantasy Hockey Analysis