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

Last week we released the full Fantasy Hockey Draft Kit for 2024, which included overall ranks for the top 150 players.

A lot of those top players will get tons of exposure and analysis before the season begins, making the edge in drafting in those early rounds a little harder to exploit. Ranks can help us prepare for drafts but also don’t tell the whole story. As drafters knowing which players have the best upside, or ability to outperform their current ADP (Average Draft Position) by a wide margin can help us make better-informed decisions when stuck between multiple players for a pick. 

Before we jump into it today, be sure to 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 some great fantasy value.

2024 Fantasy Hockey Breakout Candidates

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

Still just 21, Johnston is heading into his third full season with the Stars and looks like a player on the verge of posting some big numbers. Despite often playing on the second or third line last season, Johnston managed to post a career-best 65 points, upping his 41-point total from his rookie year. 

A versatile player, Johnston now looks like he’ll be starting 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 towards the back half of last season and made his mark in the playoffs where he managed 10 goals in 19 games. However, with the veteran now 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’d look for him to develop into at least a PPG player this year and end the year as a top-30 fantasy producer.

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

When I was creating our goalie rankings for the year I kept feeling like I wasn’t ranking Logan Thompson high enough–-even after putting him down as G19 in our season-long ranks, 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 started 78 games over the last two seasons and boosts a career .912 SV% and four shutouts over 94 career starts. At 6’4", he profiles as the sort of big athletic sort of goalie who can handle the sort of rigors of a large workload, while still putting up solid numbers.

Charlie Lindgren projects to act as a 1A type of option for Washington but he’s smaller in frame, has worse career stats over a similar sample size, and got blasted in the playoffs last season.

Thompson should be given room to run with the starting job and if he starts well, could breech 55 starts and 30+ wins, making him a prime breakout candidate for the new season.

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

Sanderson is playing on a team that has some great top-end talent with Brady Tkachuk and Tim Stutzle and looks set to play on the Senators' top pairing and top power-play unit to begin 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 larger workload and should improve on his time-on-ice (TOI) stats again, after he averaged 23 minutes a game in 2023-24.

The Senators offense will need to take at least a small step forward for Sanderson to break out, but he should be able to beat 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 makes for the kind of player whose upside I want to gamble on in 2024-25.

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

Forsling might be what you call a winner “by attrition” this season from a fantasy standpoint. Gone is Brandon Montour, who ate up a ton of power-play time for the Panthers last year, and while they did bring in Adam Boqvist as a potential replacement, Boqvist has yet to show enough consistency to earn his way into a long-term contract or suit up for more than 52 games in a single season.

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

Forsling has put up 41 and 39 points in the last two seasons, with just 8.7% of those points coming on the power play. If his special team production skyrockets, he could vault into the top 15 or so fantasy producers on the backend, giving him great breakout potential for 2024-25. 

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

Kuzmenko racked up 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 2022-23 but with Calgary lacking pure shooters, the opportunities for Kuzmenko to rack up big minutes in the top line and power play should be there on a nightly basis.

I expect this may be somewhat of a lost season for the Flames franchise in general, as they are +300 to make the playoffs right now on the DraftKings Sportsbook, but unless they acquire more young talent during the season, Kuzmenko should have a spot on the top line all season.

Bottom line, he’s a solid middle-round pick who seems likely to fall further than he should in drafts, given that he’s in a great spot to push back toward his 2022-23 levels of production.

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

Laferriere only produced 21 points in 81 games last season but the fact he was able to crack the Kings' deeper lineup and play a full season with the big club shows you the kind of regard LA has for the 22-year-old.

The Kings depth chart is also working in Laferriere’s favor right now as they seem hellbent on keeping LW Kevin Fiala on the second line which means Laferriere will start the season on the top line alongside Anze Kopitar and Adrian Kempe–-which is also where he spent larger portions of his time towards the end of last season. 

Laferriere was a solid goal-scorer in college and with his ice time likely to go up by 20% or more this season, his status as a breakout player looks strong for the new season.

Other Names to watch: 

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

More Fantasy Hockey Analysis for 2024