The NHL Camp Line Combinations That Should Move Your Fantasy Hockey Draft Board

Training camps have produced the first real line combinations of the 2026-27 season, and several of them significantly change the value of players who are still going late in fantasy drafts. Chris Kreider opened Montreal's camp on the top line with Nick Suzuki and Cole Caufield. First overall pick Gavin McKenna started Toronto's camp with John Tavares and William Nylander. Mason Marchment lined up with Macklin Celebrini and Will Smith in San Jose. Opening-day camp lines are not gospel, but they are the best available signal about where coaching staffs intend to deploy their new pieces, and they arrive before draft boards have adjusted.

Montreal put Kreider with Suzuki and Caufield

Kreider skating on the Canadiens' top line with Suzuki and Caufield is the single most consequential camp line for fantasy purposes, because it pairs a proven goal scorer with the two players who drive Montreal's offense.

Kreider's profile has always been built on net-front presence and power play goals rather than on carrying a line himself. That is exactly the kind of player whose production is determined by his linemates. Put him with a distributing center and a shooter who commands attention and his shot volume goes up without him having to change anything about how he plays.

Juraj Slafkovsky opened on the second line with Oliver Kapanen and Ivan Demidov, which is the other half of this story. Slafkovsky's draft cost assumes a top-line role, and if camp holds he is playing behind Kreider. Demidov alongside him is interesting in its own right, but the second line is a worse spot for a player being drafted as if he is on the first.

The actionable move: bump Kreider up your board and discount Slafkovsky modestly until the regular season clarifies the order.

Toronto is easing Gavin McKenna in with Tavares and Nylander

McKenna opened Maple Leafs camp on a line with Tavares and Nylander rather than with Auston Matthews, who is skating with Jack Roslovic and Matthew Knies on the top unit.

For a first overall pick, that second-line placement is close to ideal. Nylander is one of the better offensive wingers in the league and Tavares remains a productive center, which means McKenna gets high-quality linemates without the defensive responsibility and matchup attention that come with the top line. Rookies who are protected in that way tend to produce more than rookies thrown into the deep end.

Roslovic on the top line with Matthews and Knies is the sleeper angle here. Any player skating with Matthews is worth a look in deeper leagues purely on shot-share exposure, and Roslovic is going undrafted in most formats.

The caution on McKenna is the standard rookie one. Coaches move first-year players around, ice time fluctuates, and a strong camp line does not guarantee October deployment. Draft him for the talent, not for the line.

San Jose stacked Marchment with Celebrini

Marchment lining up with Celebrini and Will Smith is the biggest value-per-draft-pick opportunity on this list. Marchment has been going around an average draft position in the 130s, which is well into the range where most managers are taking flyers rather than expecting production.

Celebrini is a top-five overall fantasy player. A winger with sustained exposure to him is not a flyer. Marchment is coming off a strong finish with Columbus and brings the size and net-front game that complements a skilled center, which is the profile that tends to stick on these lines rather than get rotated out after a month.

The risk is San Jose's overall quality. A good line on a team that concedes a lot of goals produces plus-minus problems in category leagues and fewer total scoring opportunities than the same line on a contender. That is a real cost, but at a pick in the 130s it is a cost worth paying.

Rookie Ivar Stenberg, the second overall pick in the 2026 draft, made his preseason debut on a line with Alexander Wennberg and Collin Graf, which is a developmental placement rather than a fantasy-relevant one for now.

Washington, Chicago and the rest

Ryan Leonard skating with Alex Ovechkin on Washington's top line is a meaningful signal for a young player, with the caveat that Ovechkin has been dealing with a lower-body injury and left a recent practice after about 15 minutes. The Capitals described that as precautionary. If Ovechkin misses time, Leonard's placement becomes less valuable, not more.

In Chicago, Roman Kantserov opened alongside Frank Nazar and Patrick Kane. Kane remains a high-end playmaker and any young winger attached to him inherits offensive-zone starts and power play consideration.

The template across all of these is the same: find the cheap player attached to the expensive one. That is where camp line news creates value, because the star's price is already correct and the linemate's is not.

How much do camp lines actually predict

Less than fantasy managers want and more than skeptics claim. Opening-day camp combinations are a coaching staff's stated intention, and stated intentions survive into October more often than not for veteran additions and less often for rookies.

The distinction matters. A veteran signed or traded for in the offseason who opens camp on the top line is usually there because the team acquired him for that job. Kreider in Montreal and Marchment in San Jose both fit that description. A rookie on a scoring line is there on a trial basis.

Weight veteran placements heavily. Weight rookie placements as upside rather than as projection.

The Verdexed angle

Our model's approach to preseason line data is to treat it as a multiplier on a player's baseline rather than as a projection in itself. A player's individual scoring rate is reasonably stable year to year. What changes dramatically is the quality of his linemates and his power play unit, and those two inputs explain most of the season-to-season variance in point totals for non-elite forwards.

That framing produces a clear ranking of this week's news. Kreider and Marchment are the two clearest buys, because both are veterans with established scoring rates who just had their linemate quality upgraded substantially. McKenna is the highest-upside name but carries rookie variance. Roslovic and Leonard are deep-league darts.

What to do in your draft

Move Kreider and Marchment up. Take McKenna at his cost and accept the variance. Fade Slafkovsky slightly until the Montreal order settles. Keep Roslovic, Leonard and Kantserov on a watchlist rather than a roster.

And check the lines again after the final preseason weekend. The combinations that survive from the first day of camp through the last exhibition game are the ones that usually open the regular season, and that is the list worth acting on.