Your league, decoded
PorkKy is a 14-team ESPN head-to-head points league. You start 2 C, 2 LW, 2 RW, 4 D, 3 F (any forward), 1 UTIL (any skater) and 2 G — 16 starters — with 5 bench spots and 1 IR. Snake draft on Sept 27 at 20:00 (GMT+3), 45 seconds a pick, order randomized an hour before.
The scoring is what makes this league unusual, and the board is built around four consequences of it. First, defensemen get +2 on every point on top of 6/4 for goals/assists, and blocks are worth a full point each: a 60-point, 150-block D-man is worth about as much as a 90-point winger, and you need four of them plus one more at UTIL. Second, faceoffs count (+0.3 per win, −0.1 per loss): a centre who takes 1,400 draws at 55% banks ~170 points, the equivalent of 28 goals, so Hischier, Crosby, Larkin, Horvat, Barkov, Suzuki and Draisaitl climb well above their DFO ranks. Third, hits are 0.8 and PIM is −0.5, so bangers who take penalties (Zadorov, Olivier, Klapka) lose most of their shine while clean hitters (Trocheck, Cozens, Laferrière, Cuylle) keep it. Fourth, goalies are paid for workload (1 per start, 0.1 per shot faced, 0.2 per save) as much as for wins, so a 60-start goalie on a bad team such as Vejmelka scores like a top-five goalie.
How the numbers are made
Every player has a 2025-26 stat line pulled from the NHL's stats feed — goals, assists, power-play goals and points, shorthanded goals and points, game-winners, plus/minus, faceoff wins and losses, shots, hits, blocks and PIM; starts, wins, losses, shots against, saves, goals against and shutouts for goalies. A 2026-27 projection is made from per-game rates over projected games played (84-game season; regulars at 78, injury-flagged players lower), blended 50/50 with NHL.com's published 2026-27 point projections where they exist. Plus/minus is regressed hard toward zero, hat tricks are estimated from each player's goals-per-game (Poisson), and rookies or returning players without a usable line (McKenna, Martone, Frondell, Stenberg, Cole Hutson, Barkov and others) carry hand-set projections from the DFO, NHL.com, ESPN and Dobber previews.
Value is fantasy points above replacement. Replacement is found by filling all 14 lineups league-wide, best players first, base slots before F/UTIL flex and then the bench, and reading off the best player left at each slot; the positional-weight setting blends that with a league-wide average so the board doesn't become a wall of defensemen. Ranks from ESPN's July top 250 (the closest thing to what your league mates see in the ESPN lobby), ESPN's Sept 4 forward tiers, DFO's Larkin top 300, NHL.com's top 250 and Yahoo's pre-rank are shown on each player; when our number is far better than ESPN's rank, the draft room tells you that you can wait.
Draft-day cheat notes
Faceoff centres worth a look above their ADP
Defensemen: the scarce commodity
Makar, Bouchard and Werenski are first-round picks here, and Seider (128 hits, 180 blocks) is right behind them. Lane Hutson sits 123rd on ESPN's list but scores like a top-20 player under this format. Raddysh, Sanderson, Dahlin, Chychrun, Schaefer, Heiskanen, McAvoy, Fox and Sergachev are the next tier; block-first D like Dobson (188 BLK), Weegar, Parayko, Lindell and McCabe make usable fourth D or UTIL plays late.
Bangers that survive negative PIM
ADP traps (ESPN ranks them far above the model)
Breakouts named by two or more of DFO / NHL.com / ESPN / Dobber
Will Smith, Jimmy Snuggerud, Adam Fantilli, Brandt Clarke, Quinton Byfield, Jakub Dobeš, Jesper Wallstedt, Jackson LaCombe, Brock Faber, Alex Laferrière, William Eklund, Philip Broberg, Tyson Foerster, Matt Savoie, Anton Frondell, Porter Martone, Mason Marchment, Luke Hughes, Zeev Buium, Mackie Samoskevich, Joel Hofer, JJ Peterka, Roman Kantserov.
Availability to watch
Bedard out to mid-November (shoulder). McAvoy suspended 6 games. Barkov back after missing all of 2025-26. Hellebuyck has requested a trade. Gustavsson (hip) and Frederik Andersen injured. NHL.com flagged Jarvis, Fiala, Terry, Tippett, Savoie and Pietrangelo on Sept 2. Camps open Sept 16 — re-check all of these the week of the draft.
Goalie plan
Workload rules: Vasilevskiy, Logan Thompson, Vejmelka and Oettinger are the tier worth a pick in rounds 3-4; Hellebuyck (if traded to a contender), Swayman, Sorokin, Shesterkin, Wallstedt and Dobeš follow by round 6-7. Losses cost only 1, so a bad-team workhorse still pays. Cheap second starters: Dostal, Saros, Luukkonen, Bussi, Hofer, Greaves.
Sources
ESPN — top 250 (July 17), forward tiers (Sept 4), draft strategy guide (Sept 8). DFO / Daily Faceoff — Larkin top 300 and breakout columns by Szeman, Larkin, Seguin, Bondy. NHL.com — top 250, point projections, goalie win projections. Yahoo pre-rank. Dobber Ramblings. Stats: NHL Stats API, 2025-26 regular season (skater summary, realtime, faceoffs; goalie summary). Compiled Sept 3-9, 2026.