Is it April? Sure, is it too early to do a 2020-21 hockey mock draft? Normally yes, but in these times, it might be the best thing to inch your fantasy hockey inch. So I got together 11 of the best season-long fantasy hockey players I could find, to give us something fun to take a look at.

Let’s get started with what I did, and why. I always start with 2 things before I do any fantasy hockey draft, 1) Check out the categories and the format, 2) Build a spreadsheet to understand values. This draft was no different, this is a head to head categories league, using goals, assists, power-play points, hits and shots for skaters, and wins, shutouts(SO), saves, save percentage(SV%) and goals-against average(GAA) for goalies. Then it is spreadsheet time, where I understand the value of each player in each category. Here were my top 10 skaters based on 2019-20 performances.

  1. Leon Draisaitl
  2. David Pastrnak
  3. Connor McDavid
  4. Nathan MacKinnon
  5. Alex Ovechkin
  6. Auston Matthews
  7. Mika Zbanejad
  8. Jack Eichel
  9. J.T. Miller
  10. Brad Marchand

For this draft, I got the 10th pick in the snake draft, and with how this draft fell, I likely couldn’t have asked for more. I got by my estimates 3 top 10 skaters with my first 3 picks, and I still managed to get some really nice goalie depth late. Here is my full draft.

1.10 David Pastrnak

2.15 Mika Zibanejad

3.34 Max Pacioretty

4.39 Elias Pettersson

5.58 Neal Pionk

6.63 Torey Krug

7.82 Elvis Merzlikins

8.87 Alex Stalock

9.106 Tony DeAngelo

10.111 Robin Lehner

11.130 Mackenzie Blackwood

12.135 Zach Parise

13.154 Bo Horvat

14.159 Kyle Palmieri

15.178 Mikhail Sergachev

16.183 Jakob Chychrun

The biggest head-turner here was Neal Pionk . I will justify this pick, but I will note that I likely could have waited a bit on him, or at the very least taken first and gotten Pionk on the way back, as both were targets. Here is what’s to like about Pionk heading into next season. He will be the power play defenseman for the Jets, who have an above-average power-play unit, he will see top 4 minutes, he collects hits, oh and he is a 24-year-old defenseman coming off what would have been a 50+ point season. So there is still some upside left for Pionk, but with these categories, he was a top 5 defenseman last year.

The goalies are a bit of a question mark, but there is a reason why I took 4 in 5 picks. Merzlikins and Stalock are both in solid systems and had strong stretches this year,  Lehner is going to be a free agent, and should be a number one for someone in 2020-21 after a couple of really good seasons, and Blackwood is the best goalie no one is talking about. He has now posted back to back seasons with save percentages over 0.915, and goals-against averages below 3. Yes, the wins might not be there, but there is little reason to believe that the job isn’t Blackwood’s job to run with heading into next season.

I really like how this team turned out. It looks like my spreadsheet helped me get some great values. I think there is going to be a lot of value in getting your skaters early, and waiting to get your goalies, and trying to grab some of the tandems in defensive systems.

For those interested, you can find the full draft board here, https://www.fantrax.com/newui/fantasy/draftResults.go?leagueId=4nihrceek85xz648.