Where our board disagrees with the room

Why the gap is ours, not a consensus

Our football draft kit waits for three independent forecasters before it shows a gap, because there the gap is the forecasters' case against the room, and one opinion is not a case. Hockey does not have three. When this page was rebuilt in September 2026, one outside forecaster published a full-season hockey line we could read, and our own model covered the players it skipped. A forecasters' gap would have been a blank on every row, so this page measures the gap from our own board instead and calls it ours. The band under the title counts the outside forecasters live, so it stays true as that number changes.

Sources says what stands under each line: the number of independent forecasters who published one, or Ours where nobody outside projects the player and our model's line is all there is. It counts forecasters, not websites: several sites carry one company's numbers, and one opinion printed three times is still one opinion. An Ours row with a big gap is our model's hunch, not a finding, which is why its gap is printed but never coloured: our model works from NHL game logs, so it sees little of a rookie, and the room often knows more. The biggest apparent bargains on any board are often players only one forecaster had an opinion about.

Three ways to sort the same board

Draft order is the room's view, the board as the market is taking it, and the one to have open when you want to know who will be gone by your next pick. Biggest disagreement puts the largest gaps at the top, positive first, so the players our board likes most against the room lead the list; the reaches, the players going earlier than our board would take them, sit at the bottom of the same sort. Projection is our board's view alone: projected fantasy points in a points league, and in a categories or roto league the sum of the player's category scores, which is what the Value column shows there. Biggest platform split, offered once the platform spread is on the page, puts the players the two rooms disagree about most at the top. Narrow to one position and each sort reads within it, which is where a gap means something.

Where the two numbers come from

Our side is the value pool behind the hockey rankings. For each stat it takes the median of what the independent forecasters published, one vote per forecaster, and our own model fills in only for a player nobody else projected; it never votes beside them. That line is scored in the format you picked and ranked within the position, and the Our rank column is the result. The market figure is where real drafts are taking the player, taken as the median across the draft sources we read, with no range invented around it when a single source is all that stands behind it; Room rank is that order within the position. The gap is the room's rank minus ours. It is a subtraction between two rankings you can see on the row, not a forecast of anything.

The gaps hockey keeps producing

Certain gaps come back every September, and knowing why they open tells you which to trust. A goalie with a large positive gap is usually a goalie our board expects to win a tandem and the room does not, which is a bet on a coach's decision. A defenceman with a positive gap in a categories league is often a hits-and-blocks player the projections rate and the room has not heard of. A negative gap on a young forward is often the room paying for last season's second half, or for a power-play spot the projection is not sure he keeps. None of these makes the gap wrong. They tell you what question the disagreement is really about, and the injury report and the ice time on his player page are where the answer lives.

Change the format and the gaps move

The same player can be a bargain in points and a reach in categories. A sniper who scores forty goals and does little else is worth a great deal in a points league, where a goal is six, and less in a categories league, where he moves one category and little else. A shot-blocking defenceman is the reverse. The draft positions are the same in every format, because the platforms publish one average pick per player rather than one per scoring system, so when you switch the scoring only our side of the gap moves, and a gap you found in one format does not carry to the other. Set the scoring to your league's before you read a single row.

Two platforms, and how far apart they take a player

The draft position is built from the average picks on two platforms. Where both list a player we take the median, which for two numbers is the point halfway between them; where only one lists him, that platform's own pick stands alone, and nothing is estimated for the one that does not. The Platform spread column shows the earliest and latest average pick across the platforms that list him, with the number of picks between them underneath, and a dash when only one platform lists him. Hockey rooms disagree more than most: each platform's pre-draft rankings anchor its drafters, the default leagues differ in size and scoring, and goalies swing furthest of all, with defencemen next. When the spread on a player is a round or more, the blended number is the wrong one to plan around: check where he goes on the platform your league drafts on, which your own draft room shows beside every name, before you decide whether you can wait. The band counts how many players each platform prices and how many both do, without saying whose room is which.

If your league drafts on Yahoo

The My league drafts on switch above the board decides which room the page reads. All platforms, the default, is the blended draft position described above. Choose Yahoo and every draft position on the board becomes Yahoo's own average pick, Room rank becomes the player's rank at his position inside Yahoo's drafts, and the gap is worked out again as that rank minus ours, so the disagreements you see are with the room you will actually draft in. The platform spread and its sort step aside in that view, because they compare two rooms and you have picked one. Yahoo prices roughly the top 250 players, so past that point a row shows a dash and falls to the end of the draft order, and a line over the board says how many of its players Yahoo prices; nothing is estimated for the rest. The choice is kept in the page's address, so a reload or a link you send opens on the same room. It is the only platform offered on its own because we show a single platform's room only where we are allowed to show that platform's data by itself, and Yahoo's terms allow it with the credit printed under the board.

Where to go next

The full consensus table shows every source behind a projection and how far apart they are. The mock draft room lets you practise against this market, and the live companion is this board with players leaving it as they are drafted. The arithmetic is in the methodology.