Every hockey season brings surprises, some pleasant, and some not so much. Correctly predicting who those surprises will be will go a long way towards winning your league, so with that in mind, this article will feature major players who are due for positive or negative regressions -- in other words, players who are likely to outperform their latest campaigns or fall from their recent heights. On the positive regression side, to keep this from overlapping with breakout/sleeper candidates articles, I'm only going to consider players who are already very well established but have fallen on hard times.

Fantasy Hockey Regression Candidates: Bounce-Backs and Busts

Top Positive Regression Players for Fantasy Hockey 2026-27

Auston Matthews, C, Toronto Maple Leafs

Matthews recorded at least 60 goals twice in three years and surpassed the 40-goal mark in five straight seasons. That run ended in 2024-25 when he was limited to 33 goals and 78 points in 67 regular-season appearances, and it dipped further last year, with him supplying 27 goals and 53 points in 60 outings. Obviously, neither season was a disaster, and time missed due to injury played a part, but it's also fair to say that he didn't live up to the extremely high standards put upon him, particularly last season. However, in addition to the health issues, he was playing under head coach Craig Berube over those two campaigns, whose system didn't seem to fully utilize Matthews' game. New bench boss Jim Hiller is likely to put a greater emphasis on Matthews' offensive capabilities rather than prioritize a more defensive posture. There's also the potential for Matthews and Gavin McKenna to develop chemistry, which might help alleviate some of what was lost from the departure of Mitch Marner. Matthews does have a significant injury history, and Toronto as a whole is littered with question marks, so betting on Matthews bouncing back is a risk, but there are good reasons to think he can get back above the 40-goal milestone and perhaps do even more than that.

Brayden Point, C, Tampa Bay Lightning

Point was limited to 63 regular-season outings because of injury, but he also underperformed when healthy, finishing with 18 goals and 50 points. That ended his run of three straight campaigns with over 40 goals and 80 points. A big part of his crash in goals was his 14.0 shooting percentage, which was well below his average of 21.4 across the previous three campaigns. It wouldn't be surprising for his shooting percentage to tick back up to his norm this season, which will help the 30-year-old put that rough campaign behind him.

Zach Hyman, LW/RW, Edmonton Oilers

Hyman was a huge part of the Oilers across the 2022-23 and 2023-24 campaigns, accumulating 90 goals and 160 points in 159 regular-season outings. However, he took a big step backwards in 2024-25 with 27 goals and 44 points in 73 regular-season appearances. Last season probably would have been seen as his bounce-back year if injury issues didn't limit him to 58 regular-season games, but even still, he scored an impressive 31 goals and 52 points. He's still part of the top line alongside Connor McDavid, and as long as that remains true, Hyman has the potential to get back above 40 goals if he stays healthy.

Top Negative Regression Fantasy Hockey Players to Avoid in Drafts

 Darren Raddysh, D, Toronto Maple Leafs

Raddysh's matching his 22 goals and 70 points in 73 regular-season outings from 2025-26 seems extremely unlikely. Coming close to that goal total again is particularly suspect. He had a 10.4 shooting percentage last year, which nearly doubled his combined 5.7 from the 2023-24 and 2024-25 regular seasons. He also far exceeded his expected goals of 13.8, per Moneypuck, which is another indication that he might have enjoyed some good puck luck. That's not to say he'll fall off a cliff, though. Toronto will slot him into its top four, and he's primed to serve on the top power-play unit. Getting comfortably above 40 points under those circumstances seems like a given for the 30-year-old blueliner as long as he stays healthy. Just don't expect him to fully recapture last year's magic.

Mark Stone, RW, Vegas Golden Knights

Maybe a stretch, but I fear that age will catch up with the 34-year-old Stone quicker than it does with other forwards of his caliber. The problem is that he has such a long injury history, to the point where his 60 games played in the 2025-26 regular season was actually his second-best result over the past five years. His inability to stay in the lineup isn't something that's likely to improve with age, and the wear-and-tear on his body from repeated injuries might start to take its toll even when he is playing now that he's well into the back half of his career. Of course, this is just speculation. He had 28 goals and 73 points in those 60 outings in 2025-26, so he hasn't given us a concrete sign that Father Time is about to take him down a peg. Even still, you should regard him with the highest degree of caution.

Steven Stamkos, C, Nashville Predators

Stamkos seemed to turn back the clock last year with his 42 goals and 66 points in 82 regular-season outings, but unfortunately, that might have been his last big campaign. While that was his eighth campaign with at least 40 goals in his career, this time he needed a shooting percentage of 20.4 to get there. That's the highest single-season shooting percentage of his career and a significant jump from his 14.9 over the prior three regular seasons. If we dig a little deeper, Stamkos did get 63 high-danger shots in 2025-26 compared to 43 the previous campaign, and naturally those shots can help positively skew a shooting percentage, but his high-danger shooting percentage of 30.2 in 2025-26 was also unusually high, well above his 18.6 percent in 2024-25 as well as the 2025-26 league average of 19.6. This is all to say that even if we allow for the possibility that his shot selection was better last year, there's still reason to believe he also benefited from some good puck luck. His assists have also tanked since going to Nashville, so if his goal total falls back down due to a combination of puck luck balancing out and the fact that he's now 36 years old, then he won't be bringing much to the table by the standards of a center in a 12-team fantasy league.