2026-27 Fantasy Hockey Keeper Calculator

Match the calculator to your league's keeper rule

A keeper price only means something once you know your league's rule for what a keeper costs, and hockey keeper leagues tend to use some version of three. The simplest charges the round the player was drafted in last season. A stricter version moves the cost up a round for every year he is kept, so a late-round find gets dearer each season until he stops being a bargain. The third ignores last year's draft and charges the round where the player is going this year. Set the Costs menu beside each player for the first two. Leave it on his draft position for the third: the calculator then charges the round his current average draft position falls in, and the surplus usually lands near zero, because you are paying the going rate. A player nobody is drafting yet has no draft position, so the sheet asks you to type a round rather than inventing one.

Where a pick's price comes from

The price of a pick is measured, not guessed. Every player in the pool who has both a current draft position and a MustDraft value is laid out along the draft. For any overall pick, the calculator averages the values of the players drafted within six picks of it, giving the closest the most weight, then smooths the whole line so that a later pick never costs more than an earlier one. The smoothing matters in hockey, where drafts are lumpy: a cluster of goalies taken within a few picks of each other can make one spot look far richer than its neighbours. The strip under the results shows what each of the first sixteen rounds buys on that line, priced at the middle pick, so you can see where value thins out. Around each price sits a band of half a round in either direction. A verdict is firm only when the keeper's worth clears the whole band; inside it, the call is close.

Points and categories put different prices on the same player

In the points format, worth is counted in fantasy points with the weights this page uses: 6 for a goal, 4 for an assist, 2 each for plus/minus and power-play points, 0.9 for a shot on goal and 1 for a blocked shot, and for goalies 5 per win, 0.6 per save, 5 per shutout and minus 3 per goal allowed. Hits score nothing in that set. In categories or roto, worth is a sum of z-scores: how far above or below the pool's average a player sits in each category your league counts, added together.

That change of currency is where hockey keepers flip. A defenceman who lives on hits and blocks barely registers in points, but in a league that counts both he can do much of the work in two categories on his own. A goal scorer who neither hits nor blocks moves the other way, strong in points and ordinary in a banger league. Check the format chip and the category picker before trusting a verdict, because the same player can be a keep in one league and a let go in the next.

Setting the categories, and punting

The picker under the format chips starts from three common sets. Default 10 is goals, assists, plus/minus, power-play points, shots and hits for skaters, with wins, goals-against average, save percentage and shutouts for goalies. Full 12 adds penalty minutes and blocked shots to that list. Roto 9 is goals, assists, power-play points, shots, hits and blocks, plus wins, goals-against average and save percentage. If your league counts something else, such as points, shorthanded points, faceoffs won, saves or goals against, tap it in.

Punting is a separate switch. A punted category stays on the sheet, greyed out, but drops out of every value on the page, and the pick prices are refitted on the adjusted values so both halves of the comparison move together. If you have already decided to give up plus/minus or penalty minutes, punt it before you decide on a keeper, because paying a keeper's price for a category you plan to lose buys you nothing.

Reading the category cells

Under categories or roto, each keeper's row carries one cell per category, shaded by how far he sits from the pool: the strongest shades mean 1.5 or more above or below, the lighter ones between 0.5 and 1.5. A blank cell is a category his position does not play, such as a goalie stat on a skater's row. Read the row as a shape rather than a total. Two dark cells and several pale ones describe a specialist; moderate shading across the row describes a player who helps a little everywhere. Whether a specialist is worth his round depends on whether those two columns are ones you plan to win.

Goalies, the hardest keeper call

Goalies are where hockey keeper math earns its keep. A league that starts two goalies across twelve teams seats twenty-four of them, and many NHL clubs share the net, so the replacement goalie the calculator measures against is often the lesser half of a tandem. A clear number one on a strong club sits well above that line, and if he cost you a middle-round pick last season, keeping him at that price is often the best value on the sheet. A goalie who lost his job is the reverse: if he would not start for any team in a league your size, his row is flagged as not a starter at this size and he is worth nothing here. Under the default categories, goalies account for four of the ten columns, which is why a goalie's row can outscore skaters drafted several rounds ahead of him. The goalie tandem page shows who is actually getting the starts.

Flags worth slowing down for

Three notes under a keeper's name deserve a second look. One source means his projection rests on fewer than two outlets, so the calculator offers only a lean, never a firm call. Two keepers in this round means you have assigned two players to the same pick, and you only own one pick per round unless you traded for another. And a surplus within a whisker of zero means the curve has no strong opinion, so the decision belongs to your roster and your league's rules, such as whether a player kept this year costs more next year.

When the answer is let him go

The classic hockey let-go is a player kept at a price set during a breakout season he has not repeated, often a winger whose linemate or power-play role has since changed. The line combinations page shows where he is skating now. Prospect stashes, the junior and AHL players that dynasty managers hold for two or three seasons, are outside this version, as are rookie-draft and auction keeper formats. Once your keepers are set, the category rankings show the rest of the pool in the same units, the printable cheat sheet puts it on paper, and the mock draft room lets you rehearse the draft from your real seat.