The Atlantic's Power-Play Shuffle
Two Atlantic teams handed their number-one power play to a new defenseman this summer. The draft board reacted hard in all four directions. I think it got three of them right and badly misjudged the fourth.
Tampa signed John Carlson to a two-year deal after Washington moved him to Anaheim at the deadline and Anaheim let him walk. Toronto put Darren Raddysh on its top pair. Both teams then did the thing that actually matters for your pool: they put the new guy on the first power-play unit, and moved the incumbent down to the second.
The incumbents are Victor Hedman and Morgan Rielly. Between them they have close to two decades of being drafted as top-15 fantasy defensemen. Here is where the market has all four of them, by average draft position on Drafters as of 30 August 2026:
| Player | Team | Position rank | ADP |
|---|---|---|---|
| Darren Raddysh | Toronto | D8 | 33.3 |
| John Carlson | Tampa Bay | D16 | 52.2 |
| Victor Hedman | Tampa Bay | D32 | 109.9 |
| Morgan Rielly | Toronto | D42 | 152.9 |
Raddysh is being drafted ahead of Adam Fox, Roman Josi and Miro Heiskanen. A year ago you could have had him with a late pick or off waivers.
Raddysh is priced correctly, and I say that reluctantly
My instinct with a jump like that is to fade it. A player goes from nothing to D8 in one summer because of a role, not because he changed, and roles get taken away.
But look at the unit he stepped into. Toronto's first power play is Auston Matthews, William Nylander, John Tavares and Matthew Knies. The defenseman on that unit is there to move the puck to four players who can finish, and to collect secondary assists while doing it. The job produces points almost regardless of who holds it.
In a 10 or 12-team pool I would take him in the third or fourth round, which is almost exactly where he is going. So I have no edge here. I just do not think you are being robbed. Pay the price or move on.
Hedman at D32 is the mistake
This is the pick I would actually make.
The market has priced Hedman as though losing PP1 means losing his value. Getting a player of his pedigree as the thirty-second defenseman off the board, around pick 110, only makes sense if you believe he is finished.
I do not think he is finished. I think Tampa might alternate.
Coaches rotate defensemen on the top unit far more often than a projected lineup card suggests. Carlson turns 37 in January and is on a two-year deal. Teams sign that contract for a specialist, not for a man they plan to play 25 minutes a night. Specialists share time, get rested, and get benched when the unit goes cold. Hedman is the guy standing right there when any of that happens.
This is the whole bet: you are paying a round-nine price for a chance that Hedman quarterbacks PP1 for a meaningful part of the season, not all of it. If he does not, his floor is still a defenseman playing big minutes on a team that scores.
And even in the pessimistic case, the downside is soft. Hedman does not stop playing over 20 minutes a night because he moved to the second unit. In a points-only pool, where hits and blocks earn you nothing and everything runs through goals and assists, a defenseman with that much ice time on a team with Nikita Kucherov and Brayden Point is not a dead roster spot.
Rielly is a different situation, and I would leave him alone
It would be neat to argue that both demoted veterans are undervalued. They are not, and pretending otherwise is how you end up with a roster full of clever picks that all lose.
I think Rielly has a regression season coming.
Toronto's blue line is more crowded than Tampa's. Raddysh took the power play, Jake McCabe has the top pair, and Chris Tanev is beside Rielly on the second. Where Tampa's arrangement looks like two veterans sharing one job, Toronto's looks like a player being moved down the depth chart with younger and cheaper options behind him.
At ADP 153 the market has already accounted for most of that. There is no bargain in taking a declining player at exactly the price a declining player should cost. If he falls further in your draft, fine. I am not reaching.
What would make me wrong
I do not know how Tampa plans to use these two, and neither does anyone writing a projected lineup in August. Here is what I am watching:
- Carlson takes the job outright and keeps it. If he is on PP1 through October and November with no rotation, Hedman at 110 was still roughly fair and I gained nothing.
- Rielly wins his job back. Raddysh has never held a role this large. If he struggles in the first month, Toronto has an obvious veteran to put back on the unit, and Rielly at 153 becomes the value instead.
- Injuries make the whole question moot. Carlson is 36, Hedman is 35. The question of who quarterbacks the top unit assumes both are available, and at those ages that is only an assumption.
Watch the first two weeks of the season, not training camp. Camp power-play units are guesses. The unit a coach uses in a tied game in the third period of game six is the real depth chart.
The short version
Raddysh is fairly priced; take him in the third or fourth if you want him. Carlson at D16 is reasonable for what he is. Rielly is priced like a player in decline because he probably is one.
And Hedman at D32 is the one worth acting on. I am not certain about him, but the price assumes a certainty that nobody has earned yet.
Where the numbers come from. Average draft position and positional ranks are taken from the Drafters ADP board, pulled 30 August 2026, across the 63 defencemen being drafted. ADP moves through September. The ranks will shift; the argument stands or falls on its own.