Kevin Hayes

Following four seasons with the Flyers, with a year in St. Louis in between, Hayes will switch sides in the Battle of Pennsylvania after being traded to the Penguins in the offseason. The team is buying low on the 32-year-old center after he posted a career-low 29 points in 79 regular-season outings with the Blues, going without a power-play goal for the first time in his career. For a team that is reportedly looking to get younger and faster according to general manager Kyle Dubas, the towering Hayes doesn't exactly fit the bill - though he could be a decent net-front presence on a power-play that struggled during the 2023-24 campaign. Barring a significant decline in his skills courtesy of Father Time, Hayes should be capable of getting back to being a 40-point producer while filling a bottom-six role for the Pens this season.

Hayes posted 54 points in 81 games with Philadelphia last season, his highest total since the 2018-19 campaign he split between the Rangers and Winnipeg. Yet the tenor between him and head coach John Tortorella was poor, prompting the Flyers to trade Hayes to St. Louis in late June and absorb half of his $7.14 million cap hit the next three seasons to get a deal done. It's a great deal for the Blues, as they get Hayes locked in at a bargain rate for the foreseeable future. The 31-year-old should produce enough offensively to be worthy of a late-round pick in standard formats this coming season.

Hayes got a late start in 2021-22 due to an abdominal issue and then missed significant time in the middle of the year due to another ailment. He played 48 games, all told, posting 10 goals and 31 points. Hayes has finished with 30-plus points in each of his first eight years in the league, but he's cracked the 50-point barrier just once and that came in 2018-19, a year he split between the Rangers and Winnipeg. Hayes has four years left on a contract that pays him north of $7 million per season, so he's going to have a substantial role for the Flyers in 2022-23, but the health concerns are legitimate and his upside is limited.

Like virtually all of his teammates, Hayes started the year strong before seeing his stock crater completely by the end of the season. His overall numbers weren't dreadful (12 goals, 31 points in 55 games), but it's important to keep in mind he managed just three goals and eight points in his final 31 contests. Hayes was a healthy scratch for a game against New Jersey late in the year and underwent core muscle surgery this offseason, although he is expected to be ready for training camp. Hayes can provide some depth scoring for fantasy owners, but it's difficult to see the upside here. Don't reach for him on draft day.

Hayes has been a model of consistency since entering the league, and that didn't change in 2019-20, as he finished his first season with the Flyers with 23 goals and 41 points, the fifth time in six campaigns he's scored at least 40 points. There's little reason to think Hayes won't keep that up for another few seasons; at 28, he's still in his prime, and the Flyers are playing some young, talented wingers with him. Hayes will be a great value pick should he fall into the late rounds of the draft, and he'll provide extra fantasy value in leagues that reward faceoff wins.

In five NHL seasons, Hayes has only scored more than 20 goals and 50 points once (in separate campaigns). Nonetheless, he'll be making an average of $7 million per season until 2026 after signing a monster seven-year, $50 million deal with the Flyers in June. That's NHL free agency for you. To be fair, Hayes did just barely miss logging a second straight 20-goal campaign, notching 19 scores and a career-high 55 points in 71 games in 2018-19. His potential for 20 goals and 50 points will make him a quality depth addition to any fantasy lineup, but Hayes doesn't bring much else to the table. He posted a minus-2 rating, 12 PIM and 156 shots on net while adding 15 blocked shots and 58 hits in 2018-19, so owners shouldn't draft him with the expectation that he'll be contributing much in those categories.

Since-departed coach Alain Vigneault used Hayes as a shutdown center against other teams' top lines last season, but the 6-foot-5 pivot still managed to finish with a positive rating for the fourth time in four NHL campaigns while potting a career-best 25 goals and topping 40 points for the third time. Whether he centers the second or third line for new bench boss David Quinn, Hayes should once again post well-rounded numbers while contributing to the second power-play unit. This could be the year Hayes finally breaks the 50-point barrier, though he likely won't give you much more than that even if everything breaks right.

Over his first 51 games of the 2016-17 season, Hayes looked like he was finally realizing his high-end potential -- he racked up 15 goals, 42 points and a plus-23 rating, boosting many a fantasy franchise. Then, suddenly and without explanation, he totally cratered, managing only 10 points in the next 37 games, including just three assists scattered over 12 playoff contests. Even so, he managed to set a new career best with 49 points in the regular season, and Hayes remained well on the positive side of the plus-minus ledger (plus-10) despite not necessarily carrying a reputation as a defensive whiz. The 25-year-old is coming to a crossroads in his career, as he'll be a restricted free agent after 2017-18 -- now’s the time for him to either reach stardom or settle for relative mediocrity. To achieve the former, he may want to consider unleashing more shots on net, as Hayes has yet to average even two shots per game in his three NHL seasons. If he commits to being more aggressive, productivity will follow.

One of the Rangers’ highest-upside players, Hayes took a step back in his sophomore season, as his point total dropped from 45 to 36, disappointing fantasy owners looking for growth from 2010’s No. 24 overall pick. He’s got an uncertain future at center as a poor face-off man – especially with Derek Stepan and Mika Zibanejad ahead of him – so Hayes is going to have to play wing if he wants to see top-six minutes, and it’s hard to see him winning those over the Rangers’ other flanker options. A bounce-back to his 2014-15 level may be reasonable to expect, but Hayes isn’t likely to experience a full-on breakout unless other Rangers’ injuries create a long-term opportunity for him.

After signing with the Rangers last August, Hayes impressed in his rookie year, posting 17 goals and 45 points despite mostly seeing limited ice time on the third line. On another team, the former Boston College star might now be centering the first or second line, but with Derek Stepan and Derrick Brassard locked in as the top two centers, plus a poor showing at the face-off dot last year, Hayes is a candidate to be shifted to left wing, where he might find top-six minutes and thus a scoring boost. If he gets consistent second-line minutes and additional power-play time, he'll be a good bet to deliver 60 points in his sophomore campaign.

Easily one of the Rangers' most explosive signings of the summer, the 6-foot-3, 205-pound former Hobey Baker Award candidate is not your ordinary college free agent. While the Boston College forward managed just two points in eight games with Team USA at the World Junior Championships, he's coming off a solid four-year career with the Eagles, registering 67 points (28 goals) in 39 games as a senior. Formerly the property of the Blackhawks after they drafted him in 2010, Hayes has a “one man’s trash is another man’s treasure”-kind of vibe to him. We would certainly consider Hayes a dark horse to make the Rangers’ opening-night roster.

The 18-year-old Hayes will be playing with Boston College, the defending NCAA Men's Ice Hockey Champions, this winter. He was selected as the 24th overall in the 2010 NHL Entry Draft. He had 25 goals and 42 assists while with Noble and Greenough School of Massachusetts in 2009-10.