2024-25 Season Point Total Ceilings And Floors – Forwards

As just about everyone in the world wraps up their fantasy football drafts this week, the focus of the fantasy world will shift to hockey soon enough. NHL.com has released its Top 200 fantasy players for this season and there are 10 Golden Knights listed. In a separate article concerning just Vegas, the writers for NHLFantasy placed point projections on all of them.

All of the point projections are based on a season in which each player plays all 82 games. Using the same parameters, let’s take it one step further and place ceilings and floors on each of the 10 Golden Knights (plus a few bonus ones). The floor is a number I believe the player can’t fail to reach while the ceiling is the absolute most a player can achieve this season.

We’ll start with the forwards. Tomorrow we’ll finish up with defensemen and goalies.

Jack Eichel
NHL.com Projection – 84
Ceiling – 110
Floor – 60

For Eichel, there really shouldn’t be much of a ceiling. In many ways, his ceiling is based on Vegas and Bruce Cassidy history more than his own. No Golden Knight has ever reached 100 points and only a few have ever even recorded one point per game. However, Eichel is one of them as he posted 68 points in 63 games last year. That’s an 88-point pace over a full season. I think he could do even more with a fully healthy year. As for the floor, his career low in points per game was the first year with Vegas in which he posted 25 in 34 games. That’s almost exactly 60, and that season he was returning from neck surgery on a new team, that was struggling. No way he’s short of that if he plays all 82 this year.

Tomas Hertl
NHL.com Projection – 67
Ceiling – 80
Floor – 41

I’ll admit, my concern level for Hertl is about as high as anyone you’ll find. I honestly believe there’s a chance his best days are long behind him. Half a point per game as a floor is an extremely pessimistic number for Hertl, but I can see legitimate scenarios where he struggles to generate offense all season. That being said, my concern level does not match my expectations for Hertl. If I’m projecting his season, I’m pretty much in lockstep with the NHL.com number of him reaching the mid-60’s. He’s never been a point-per-game player in his career and I don’t expect that to begin this year, so we can’t put the ceiling above 80.

Mark Stone
NHL.com Projection – 64
Ceiling – 95
Floor – 60

If you guarantee me 82 games of Mark Stone, there’s no way he’s going to generate less than 60 points. The 64-point projection even seems incredibly low to me as he should be closer to 80 than 60 if he plays them all. With VGK’s lack of high-end wingers, there’s a chance Cassidy has no choice but to play Stone with Eichel. Those two together will generate heaps of points, though the rest of the lineup will likely struggle.

William Karlsson
NHL.com Projection – 61
Ceiling – 70
Floor – 35

You won’t find a bigger fan of Karlsson’s game than me, I love every single aspect of what he can do on the ice. I do not, however, love the situation he’s likely to find himself in this year. With Eichel and Hertl probably occupying the top two center spots and the winger depth in shambles, Karlsson will have to play a lot of games with below-NHL-average quality wingers. He’ll still find a way to generate some offense, but it’s not going to be easy, especially considering how valuable he is starting in his own end.

Ivan Barbashev
NHL.com Projection – 56
Ceiling – 60
Floor – 40

Barbashev is one of the more predictable forwards on the VGK roster. He’s never going to go out and post a point per game but his game is so repeatable that he’s unlikely to throw up a massive stinker season. His ceiling is exactly even with his career high in points (STL 21-22), so I’m going out on a limb by guaranteeing he won’t set a new high, but that feels pretty safe after 100+ games in Vegas, mostly playing with Eichel.

Pavel Dorofeyev
NHL.com Projection – 48
Ceiling – 70
Floor – 30

Yeah, 70. Dorofeyev is going to get the first crack at playing in the top six and if he runs with it the sky is the limit. He has the perfect skill set to play on the wing of a superstar center. If he does indeed reach 70 points, the Golden Knights will be one of the best teams in the NHL. On the flip side, if he can’t hang onto that job he’ll fall into a place in the lineup that is going to be hard to score in. Playing all 82 though, he’s far too talented to come up short of 30 points.

Victor Olofsson
NHL Projection – 46
Ceiling – 65
Floor – 30

The wide range here is all because of the stinker Olofsson posted last season. He played 51 games and scored just 15 points. That’s about 25 points over a full NHL season. There’s no way he’ll play all 82 and be that ineffective so I raised the bar a bit. Optimistically though, there is a path for Olofsson to return to the player who received Calder votes in his rookie year. Grasp a top six spot on the wing of Eichel or opposite Stone and there’s no telling how much of an offseason steal he could be.

OTHERS

Alexander Holtz
Ceiling – 65
Floor – 30

Nic Roy
Ceiling – 55
Floor – 35

Brett Howden
Ceiling – 40
Floor – 25