We are roughly a quarter of the way through the NHL season, which is the point where fantasy managers stop calling early numbers small samples and start treating them as who players are. That is exactly the moment to exploit the gap. Some of the most productive skaters in fantasy are riding shooting percentages or power-play runs they have never sustained, and some of the most frustrating ones are doing everything right except finishing. All numbers below are through games of Nov. 10.
The method is simple: compare this season’s shooting percentage and point mix to each player’s established track record, then check whether the shot volume and ice time underneath support the production. When volume and role are up but the results are down, buy. When the results are up but the volume is down, sell.
Buy Low
Zach Werenski, D, Columbus
Werenski has 14 points in 16 games, so nobody in your league thinks he is broken — but they may think he is a good defenseman instead of a league-winning one, and that perception gap is the opening. He has two goals on 50 shots, a 4.0% shooting percentage, against a career mark of 7.2% and 8.5% last season, when he scored 22 goals on 260 shots and finished with 81 points. He went goalless through his first 13 games and both goals have come since Nov. 5.
Meanwhile, his role has only grown. He is averaging 28:17 of ice time, up from 26:37 a year ago, and he is putting more than three shots a night on goal. Normal finishing on that volume puts him back on a 20-goal pace from here, which is the difference between a top-10 defenseman and the top two. If his manager is annoyed about the goal column, make the call now, because the correction has already started.
Adam Fantilli, C, Columbus
Fantilli is the cleaner buy because his surface stats look genuinely bad: four goals and six points in 16 games. But he has 48 shots, exactly three per game, which is up from his previous career rate of about 2.4. He shot 12.9% over his first three seasons, including a 31-goal campaign in 2024-25, and he is at 8.3% now. His ice time is a career-high 20:44, nearly two minutes more than last season.
More shots, more minutes, fewer goals is the textbook positive-regression profile. The two assists are the bigger worry — Columbus has not converted much around him — but a center logging 20-plus minutes and shooting at this rate will not stay at a 30-point pace. In leagues that count shots on goal, he is already helping you; the points are coming.
Shea Theodore, D, Vegas (deeper leagues)
Theodore is the riskier buy. He has six points in 19 games with only four assists, despite 22:00 a night and 37 shots. His shooting (5.4%) is right in line with his history, so this is not a finishing problem — it is an assist drought. That should improve for a player who posted 57 points in 67 games two seasons ago, but he also slipped to 39 points in 70 games last year, and he has just two power-play points this season. Target him as a 40-point defenseman at a bargain price, not as a return to his peak.
Sell High
Leo Carlsson, C, Anaheim
Carlsson has been one of the best fantasy centers in hockey: 26 points in 18 games, with 6 goals and 20 assists. Do not confuse that with a breakout you can bank on. Seventeen of his 26 points have come on the power play — 65% of his production. Over his first three seasons, power-play points made up about 24% of his output.
The shot profile is weaker still. He has just 31 shots in 18 games, about 1.7 per game, down from roughly 2.8 per game last season when he scored 29 goals. And he is converting 19.4% of those shots against a 14.7% rate over his first three seasons. A player getting fewer looks and finishing more of them, while leaning on one unit for two-thirds of his points, is priced at his ceiling. He is a good young player who will still finish well above his draft cost, but if someone will pay a first-tier center price for him, take it.
Elias Pettersson, C, Vancouver
Pettersson’s bounce-back narrative is the easiest sell on the board. He is at a point per game, 20 points in 20 games, after back-to-back seasons of 45 and 51 points. The problem: 25 shots in 20 games. That is 1.25 per game from a player who averaged about 2.3 per game over his career, and who had 257 shots in his 102-point 2022-23 season.
Sixteen of his 20 points are assists, so the production depends on teammates finishing his passes, not on him driving offense himself. The ice time (20:33) is real and he will remain a useful player, but a center who is not shooting does not sustain a point-per-game pace. Use the name recognition and the recovered stat line to buy something with a sturdier base.
Jack Roslovic, C/RW, Toronto
Roslovic has 9 goals and 20 points in 19 games and has been a waiver-wire hit. His career high is 45 points, set in 2021-22. He is shooting 17.6% against a career 13.0%, and the production is not coming from a sustainable power-play role either — he has only two power-play points. His ice time has climbed to 17:04 with Kirill Marchenko sidelined, and that is the piece most likely to disappear when Marchenko returns. Enjoy one more week if you need to, but the smart play is to package him while his line looks like a top-six winger’s.
Gavin McKenna, LW, Toronto (redraft only)
The rookie has 13 points in 20 games on just 14:06 of ice time and is shooting 16.7%. Five of those points have come on the power play. That is a lot of efficiency for a third-line workload. Dynasty managers should hold without hesitation, but in a one-year league, his name value right now likely exceeds what he will produce from here.
Already Corrected: Don’t Overpay
Adrian Kempe was the most popular buy-low name of late October, when he had 3 goals on 41 shots. He has since scored three more and sits at 6 goals and 13 points in 15 games, shooting 12.0%. The discount is gone; value him as the 30-goal winger he is, not as a bargain.
On the other side, Tage Thompson has 10 goals in 17 games, which might look like a sell, but he has 70 shots — about 4.1 per game — and is converting at 14.3%. Nothing in that line requires luck. Hold him as a legitimate 45-to-50-goal threat.
The Takeaway
The common thread: trust shot volume and ice time, not the goal column. Werenski and Fantilli are doing the things that produce fantasy points and have not been paid for it yet. Carlsson, Pettersson and Roslovic are being paid for things they have not been doing at a sustainable rate. Make your offers this week, before another ten games make the corrections obvious to everyone in your league.
See today's NHL lines on DFS Lines, each one set against the player's last ten games.