So much of a fantasy manager's prep ahead of a draft is about attempting to determine which players have been undervalued, but it's equally important to dodge potential traps. Sometimes a player is coming off a big season, but there's reason to suspect a regression. Other times, a player has so much hype that managers are simply jumping on them earlier than they should.
I went through CBS' https://www.cbssports.com/fantasy/hockey/draft/averages/average draft position list with the aim of highlighting players who I believe have a draft cost that outweighs their value. Please note the players are in no way without value. If they drop meaningfully below the listed ADP in your draft, then it's worth considering taking them, but my recommendation is to hold off on grabbing them at their listed ADP.
The ADPs I'll be showing below were accurate as of the time of writing. Additionally, any positions mentioned will be based on CBS Sports' designation for the player.
Matt Boldy (LW), Minnesota Wild, ADP: 13.6
Boldy is almost certainly going to have a great season, so if you're taking him this high, it's not a disaster. That said, with the bar set as high as it is by his current ADP, I'd want to be confident that he can repeat something close to his 42 regular-season goals from 2025-26. Unfortunately, I'm not sure he'll repeat it.
His 2025-26 regular-season shooting percentage jumped to a career-high 16.5, which was well above his career average of 11.8 going into the campaign, so that's something of a warning sign. Looking a little deeper, he did take 84 high-danger shots in 2025-26, which was up from 62 the year prior, which can partially explain a jump in shooting percentage, but his 26.2 high-danger shooting percentage was also a massive increase from his 14.5 in 2024-25. His mid-range shooting percentage also jumped by a less extreme but nevertheless noticeable amount, going to 20.3 in 2025-26 from 13.8 in 2024-25.
If we also look at his expected goals per Moneypuck for 2025-26, they dipped to 30.5 last year from 33.7 a year prior.
What all that suggests is that his jump to 42 goals last campaign, which surpassed his previous career high of 31, set in 2022-23, might have been partially the result of favorable puck luck. Does that mean he's due to collapse? No. If you were going to pencil him in for about 30 goals, you'd be making an extremely safe projection. However, if you're measuring him against Cole Caufield (17.4), Mikko Rantanen (18.4), Auston Matthews (19.2), Jack Eichel (19.4) and Jason Robertson (22.2), which is what Boldy's current ADP forces you to do, then there's a strong argument to be made that Boldy dropping from 42 goals to something closer to 30 might be enough to drop him down below the forwards I just noted who currently have worse ADPs.
Jack Hughes (C), New Jersey Devils, ADP: 22.8
This is a similar premise to Boldy, where I'm not suggesting that he's going to have a rough campaign. There's just one aspect that worries me: while it matched his previous goal total in Boldy's case, in Hughes' scenario, the issue is solely his health. Hughes has played 62 or fewer regular-season games in each of his past three campaigns, and he's only breached the 65-game mark once in his seven NHL seasons.
To be fair, he's done well despite that, recording 27 goals and 70-77 points in each of those past three regular seasons, so there is an argument to be made in favor of taking him: If that's what he does during an injury-limited campaign, imagine what he can do in a healthy one. Chasing that hope with such a high pick seems risky, though, especially when taking Hughes means passing on a forward like Nick Suzuki (27.4), who has a 537-game active iron man streak and is coming off a 101-point campaign. Even if you want to argue Hughes in an ideal setting can do a bit better, the ideal for Hughes is so much less likely than the ideal for Suzuki. Similarly, Martin Necas (30.6) has traditionally been healthier, and he's coming off a campaign in which he had 38 goals and 100 points. Necas' goal total might decline somewhat this year, but so long as he's playing alongside Nathan MacKinnon, Necas should be a good bet for another 90-plus campaign.
I'd even toy with taking Clayton Keller (34.0), Tage Thompson (36.6), Filip Forsberg (37.2), William Nylander (37.6), Mark Scheifele (38.6) and Mitch Marner (41.2) because while Hughes could do better, the risk is just too high for this early stage of the draft. Let someone else be the one who takes that risk.
Roman Josi (D), Nashville Predators, ADP: 33.2
Similarly, I recommend letting someone else be the one who takes a chance on Josi, at least if he ends up going close to his current ADP. Josi more than held his own last year despite missing some time, finishing with 13 goals and 55 points in 68 regular-season appearances. While that demonstrated he still clearly has something left in the tank, he's now 36 years old, so if you expect him to recapture his heights in 2021-22 (96 points) and 2023-24 (85), you're likely to end up disappointed.
Granted, there is some leeway when you get down to an ADP of 33.2, where he doesn't need to do quite that well to still be worth the pick. However, when I look down and see Adam Fox (43.6), I can't help but see a defenseman with a similar risk of injury, but who is also much younger (28 years old) and has a significantly better chance of jumping back into that highest echelon of offensive blueliners.
Jakob Chychrun (45.0), Shayne Gostisbehere (48.2), Miro Heiskanen (66.2) and Moritz Seider (68.2) are all strong candidates to get to the 50-point mark, and what risk they do have is mitigated by their meaningfully lower ADP cost. I'm not a believer in Darren Raddysh (77.4) matching his 22 goals and 70 points from last year, but when I go that far down, and I still see reasonable candidates for 50 points, it becomes that much harder to justify taking a chance on Josi, who is a regression risk due to his age and injury history.
Sidney Crosby (C), Pittsburgh Penguins, ADP: 41.2
Listing Crosby here is painful. I really want to be wrong about him. Certainly, he has avoided a regression thus far. Sure, he did miss time in 2025-26, but his 29 goals and 74 points in 68 regular-season appearances were great. That also came after three consecutive campaigns over the 30-goal and 90-point milestones.
Is it possible that he stays healthy this year and gets back over 30 goals and 90 points? I'd like that to be the case. Crosby is one of the game's all-time greats, and the longer he keeps producing, the better. At the same time, he's 39 years old, so the possibility of him enduring a substantial decline can't be dismissed.
Crosby is still worth a fair degree of risk, and I'm only listing him here because around that same level, you could be getting Kyle Connor (43.6), who is a safer bet to get past those 30-goal and 90-point milestones. Sebastian Aho (43.6), Wyatt Johnston (45.4), Tim Stutzle (53.0), Artemi Panarin (61.4) and Alex DeBrincat (61.4) are some of the other forwards I'd give serious consideration to taking ahead of Crosby. If nothing else, those forwards provide a strong safety net where, if you wait on Crosby to take some other priority and end up missing out on the Penguins' captain as a result, you know that there are still other forwards who are in that offensive range available.
Jacob Markstrom (G), Florida Panthers, ADP: 56.5
Betting on Markstrom having a bounce-back campaign now that he's moved to Florida is dangerous. It's important to keep in mind that New Jersey wasn't what was holding him back in 2025-26. In terms of goals saved above expected, he posted a minus-11.9 last year, per Moneypuck, which ranked 88th out of 98. Meanwhile, the Devils' expected goals against last season ranked 11th at 249.47. Take these numbers with a grain of salt, but they imply that New Jersey's defense was okay, but the team was held back by Markstrom's poor goaltending.
Can Markstrom do better? It's possible, especially given that he has in the past, but he'll also be turning 37 on Jan. 31, so Father Time catching up with him might also be a factor in his decline. When it comes to how much the change of scenery will help, that's a tough one. Florida was the lesser team defensively last season, finishing 22nd with 265.22 expected goals against, so if that held true in 2026-27, Markstrom would actually have a more difficult time. Of course, the expectation held by many is that Florida will rebound thanks to a combination of the addition of Brady Tkachuk and better luck on the injury front. That's reasonable, but keep in mind that the Panthers are littered with veterans who are significant injury risks, so they have one of the highest ranges of plausible outcomes out of any team for the upcoming campaign.
This is all to say that Markstrom is a big risk, which makes spending such a high pick on him unappealing in my eyes.
Nazem Kadri (C), Colorado Avalanche, ADP: 65.0
There's nothing wrong with Kadri, but his ADP suggests people expect him to do better than his 16 goals and 50 points in 77 regular-season appearances in 2025-26. I'm not convinced. Sure, he's moved to Colorado, but his previous success with the Avalanche came during the prime of his career. Now he's 36 (or rather, will be as of Oct. 6). His four goals and nine points in 16 regular-season appearances with the Avalanche after the trade seem like a reasonable expectation of the kind of scoring pace he can expect this campaign.
Which is fine from the Avalanche's perspective. Kadri's firmly in the 3C slot behind Nathan MacKinnon and Brock Nelson, so Colorado doesn't need Kadri to do more than provide some secondary scoring. On the subject of Nelson, though, he has an ADP of just 123.0, despite finishing 2025-26 with an impressive 33 goals and 65 points in 81 regular-season appearances. Granted, Nelson struggled offensively in the playoffs, but I'd rate him a touch higher than Kadri in terms of 2026-27 fantasy value.
Even if you disagree with that, taking Kadri over Aleksander Barkov (75.2), Robert Thomas (79.6), Dylan Larkin (83.8) and Nick Schmaltz (87.0) feels like a stretch. Sure, you can point to question marks with those centers, but it's not as if Kadri is a safe bet to recapture his former glory, so you're not avoiding risk by reaching up higher to grab Kadri over any of those cheaper and likely better options.
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