Get ready for your season with theScore's fantasy hockey draft kit.

It's tough to win a fantasy hockey championship without a true superstar, but it's not impossible. Below, we identify five players to target this season who should be available later in the draft or if you get stuck with a late first-round pick.

1. Andrei Svechnikov, LW/RW, Hurricanes

2019-20 Stats: 68 GP, 24 G, 37A, 20 PPP
Yahoo! ADP: 17.0

Svechnikov had a breakout campaign in 2019-20, averaging nearly a point per game as a 19-year-old, and he's barely scratched the surface of his potential. The young Hurricanes winger carries a ton of value as a late-first or early second-round pick considering he's dual-eligible and is poised to see more ice time than the 16:44 he averaged last season.

He may not get full-time first-line duties alongside Sebastian Aho and Teuvo Teravainen, but he'll be a fixture in the top six and should be on Carolina's first power-play unit. On top of his raw stats, Svechnikov provides solid value for a scoring winger in banger leagues, registering 27 blocks and 116 hits last season.

2. Torey Krug, D, Blues

2019-20 Stats: 61 GP, 9 G, 40 A, 28 PPP
Yahoo! ADP: 70.6

Krug became a cornerstone player for the Bruins over the last seven seasons, and he shouldn't have an issue settling into his new role with the Blues. He'll get the opportunity to play top-pairing minutes thanks to Alex Pietrangelo's departure, and his power-play production shouldn't take much of a hit if he shares a man-advantage with the likes of Ryan O'Reilly, David Perron, and Mike Hoffman.

Several defenders are projected to fly off the board before Krug, giving managers a terrific chance to score some value in the middle rounds.

3. Igor Shesterkin, G, Rangers

2019-20 Stats: 12 GP, 10 W, .932 Sv%, 2.52 GAA
Yahoo! ADP: 49.7

Deciding when to take your starting goalie is always one of the toughest decisions in a fantasy draft. If you're on the fence with Shesterkin available, it would be wise to nab the Rangers' new starting netminder. His career sample size is small, but the 25-year-old put up incredible numbers in his brief rookie campaign and flashed the potential of becoming a bonafide No. 1. Don't be surprised if he's a hot commodity early in drafts.

4. Jake Guentzel, LW/RW Penguins

2019-20 Stats: 39 GP, 20 G, 23 A, 10 PPP
Yahoo! ADP: 26.4

Getting a superstar in a draft's first round is easy, but who you surround him with is the key to a championship run. Enter Guentzel, one of the top complementary pieces available. The Penguins' first-line winger registered 40 goals in 2018-19, then was having an even better campaign last year (0.51 goals and 1.10 points per game) before an injury cut his regular season short. Guentzel is one of the NHL's most underrated goal scorers and slots in beside Sidney Crosby at even strength and on the power play.

5. Taylor Hall, LW, Sabres

2019-20 Stats: 65 GP, 16 G, 36 A, 18 PPP
Yahoo! ADP: 53.5

Hall is coming off a lackluster season split between the Devils and Coyotes, and his 2021 fantasy value is being undersold. His situation is immensely improved by joining the Sabres as he's projected to ride shotgun with Jack Eichel at five-on-five. He's also playing under a coach he's familiar with in Ralph Krueger and can share a power play with Buffalo's aforementioned captain, Rasmus Dahlin, and Victor Olofsson. Hall is one of the top sleepers available this year, and you should snag him if he's available anywhere near the middle of your draft.

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Six players and two staff members of the Dallas Stars recently tested positive for COVID-19, the club announced Friday. As a result of the positive tests, the league is in the process of reviewing and revising the team's schedule "with the expectation that the team will not open its 2020-21 season earlier than Tuesday, Jan. 19," a statement said.

The Stars were scheduled to open the season with two games against the Florida Panthers on Jan. 14 and 15 and then two games against the Tampa Bay Lightning on Jan. 17 and 19. The plan is to reschedule all games affected by the delay, according to Sportsnet's Elliotte Friedman.

Dallas canceled the team's practice on Friday morning as a result. The Columbus Blue Jackets also held out a large number of players from practice Friday due to COVID-19 protocols.

The Stars' training facilities have been closed and will remain shut for several days while more daily testing and contact tracing occurs. All players and staff who tested positive are self-isolating and following appropriate protocols.

The NHL successfully held its playoffs last season in two secure bubbles in Edmonton and Toronto with 24 teams playing. There were no positive COVID-19 tests recorded throughout the two months of play. This season, the league realigned its divisions to minimize travel and implemented a number of rules to try to curb the spread of the coronavirus.

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Expectations are a part of sports, and hockey is no exception. The most talented teams believe they can win the Stanley Cup, and anything less is a disappointment.

Then there's the middle of the pack, comprised of teams fighting for a playoff spot and hoping for the best when they get there. For these clubs, their expectations are lower, but failure to meet them usually has consequences.

No one takes the fall for their team's inability to meet those standards more than head coaches. Whether or not they deserve it, NHL bench bosses are often the first to go when their squads don't achieve what it'd hoped, regardless of how realistic the expectations were.

Heading into the new season, several head coaches are under more pressure than others for one reason or another. Here's a handful who could find themselves out of work if their teams underachieve:

Jared Bednar

The Colorado Avalanche head coach wasn't entirely to blame for the way last season ended for his club. Colorado's Game 7 loss to the Dallas Stars in the second round was somewhat forgivable because injuries ravaged the Avalanche throughout the 2019-20 campaign.

Bednar got a pass after losing starting goaltender Philipp Grubauer for the abbreviated regular season's final month and most of the aforementioned playoff series while also playing without two-thirds of the team's dominant top line for extended periods. In fact, he deserves praise for guiding the club to the NHL's third-best record amid all the injuries.

However, expectations are even higher for Colorado this season. If the team stays healthy but fails to reach the final four, Bednar's future will undoubtedly come into question. The Avalanche are absolutely loaded with talent, and as such, they're a Stanley Cup favorite. It's reasonable to expect them to at least knock on the door of the championship round. Failing to do that could spell doom for Bednar.

Paul Maurice

Maurice has enjoyed plenty of job security with the Winnipeg Jets over the years, and for good reason. He's one of the NHL's most widely respected head coaches, so it's not much of a surprise that only one bench boss (Tampa Bay Lightning's Jon Cooper) has held his current position longer.

That being said, it won't be too shocking if Jets management feels a change is necessary if the club underachieves this season after getting bounced from the qualifying round in August. Winnipeg reached the conference finals in 2017-18, but besides that result, the Jets haven't made it past the first round since Maurice took the helm in 2014.

Last season's postseason format was an aberration, but there'll be no excuses if a team featuring the Vezina Trophy winner and a dynamic group of forwards fails to go on a deep postseason run in 2021.

Mike Sullivan

Sullivan built up plenty of goodwill in the Pittsburgh Penguins organization and among its fans for guiding the squad to back-to-back titles in 2016 and 2017.

However, things have gotten progressively worse for him and his team since then. The Penguins lost in the second round of the playoffs in 2018, got knocked out in the first round the following year, and then suffered a humiliating defeat at the hands of the underdog Montreal Canadiens in August's qualifying round.

Pittsburgh's championship window is clearly closing. Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin are 33 and 34, respectively. While Sullivan's not the one building the roster (that's general manager Jim Rutherford, who made several questionable offseason moves), he'll be expected to guide the Penguins further than they've gone since their championship years.

Sheldon Keefe

Keefe has only been behind the Toronto Maple Leafs bench since November 2019, when team president Brendan Shanahan fired Mike Babcock and replaced him with the club's current head coach, who'd worked wonders alongside Leafs general manager Kyle Dubas in the OHL.

It doesn't seem likely that Shanahan and Dubas would have a quick trigger finger with Keefe unless things significantly deteriorated in Toronto. However, it's also clear that expectations are high for the Leafs bench boss in 2021 after the Columbus Blue Jackets knocked Toronto out of the qualifying stage last season, thanks in part to a stunning Game 3 comeback.

Dubas addressed several needs in the offseason, bringing in TJ Brodie to bolster the defense as well as Joe Thornton, Wayne Simmonds, and Jimmy Vesey up front. Given how last season ended and the fact the roster's been upgraded, it's on Keefe to get his players to perform. If they don't, the head coach's abilities will surely be scrutinized even more heavily than they were after last season's collapse.

Geoff Ward

Much like Keefe, Ward hasn't been his team's head coach for long. The Calgary Flames promoted him to the top job on an interim basis following Bill Peters' departure last November before removing the interim tag in September. But the length of Ward's tenure may not matter if the Flames sputter out of the gate or fail to improve on last season's results, which ended with a first-round exit.

On the one hand, the pressure cooker is hotter for the Canadian teams, and the competition between them will be as fierce as ever in the realigned North Division.

On the other, the Flames are expected to take a step forward after landing goaltender Jacob Markstrom in free agency, and they still have a solid core in front of him. Whether or not it's justified, Ward could pay the price if Calgary doesn't progress given their upgrade in the crease and the skill the club already possesses.

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The Carolina Hurricanes elevated Eric Tulsky and Darren Yorke to assistant general manager and hired Aaron Schwartz as director of hockey operations, the club announced Friday.

Tulsky "will assist in all hockey-related matters, manage the team's pro scouting department, and oversee the team's hockey information department," according to the team.

The analytics expert is approaching his seventh season with the Hurricanes. He previously occupied the role of vice president of hockey management and strategy, in which he produced and examined data to assist the hockey operations department and coaching staff.

Tulsky, a Harvard graduate, is one of the most highly respected statistical specialists in the NHL. The accomplished academic, who also holds a Ph.D. from UC-Berkeley, began blogging about hockey in 2011. The Hurricanes hired him as a full-time analyst in August 2015 after adding him on a part-time basis for the 2014-15 season.

Yorke is entering his 12th season with Carolina. He moves up from his previous role as director of player personnel. He'll oversee amateur scouting and player development while remaining responsible for the club's draft.

Schwartz previously worked in the hockey operations departments of the Montreal Canadiens and Washington Capitals. He's also been an agent.

Tulsky's hiring is yet another significant achievement for the NHL's analytics community. Though John Chayka left his post as Arizona Coyotes general manager this offseason, he became the league's youngest GM at age 26 in 2016. The Toronto Maple Leafs promoted then-32-year-old Kyle Dubas to GM in 2018.

The New Jersey Devils brought in Tyler Dellow as vice-president of analytics in 2019.

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The Buffalo Sabres signed forward Riley Sheahan to a one-year pact worth the league-minimum $700,000, the club announced Friday.

Sheahan is the first NHL player brought in on a professional tryout agreement this season to sign a contract, according to CapFriendly.

The 29-year-old contributed eight goals and seven assists in 66 games with the Edmonton Oilers in 2019-20.

The veteran center is particularly useful on the penalty kill, as he led Oilers forwards by averaging 2:21 in shorthanded ice time per game last season. The Sabres are in need of a boost in that department, having lost Zemgus Girgensons to a season-ending hamstring injury.

Sheahan previously played for the Florida Panthers, Pittsburgh Penguins, and Detroit Red Wings. He spent his first six-plus campaigns with the latter club, which drafted him 21st overall in 2010.

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Anaheim Ducks head coach Dallas Eakins condemned the violent protests by supporters of President Donald Trump at the United States Capitol on Wednesday.

"When I was young, 18 or 19 years old, it was like this pause and you'd look up at these buildings and how long they had been there and what they meant to this country and what they have endured over the years and all the unbelievably important decisions that went on there," Eakins said Thursday, according to The Orange County Register's Elliott Teaford.

"And what happened yesterday is something we usually see on TV, and it's a reporter very far away in another country showing us what's going on in another country," he added. "And to me, the amount of sacrifice that all these people who have put their lives on the line, around the world, in the military to keep us safe, to keep us safe from something like that, it literally sickens me."

Eakins was born in Florida and has coached in both the United States and Canada. He voiced his frustration with how divided the U.S. is and the violence that has arisen as a result.

"It makes me want to tear up. It makes me angry that we don't have the common sense to debate, talk, use your vote, anything peaceful to get change," he said. "You might see things one way. I might see things another. That doesn't mean we've got to stand there and punch the crap out of each other."

The Ducks began their training camp last week, and Eakins said Wednesday's events were "a big topic" in the club's dressing room.

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The NHL won't look to keep the North Division around beyond the 2021 season.

"No. Quite the opposite, actually," deputy commissioner Bill Daly said on Sportsnet's "Tim and Sid" on Thursday. "I think from a league perspective, there's a desire to resume our regular alignment as quickly as we possibly can."

Daly added that the Canadian division should provide plenty of intrigue while it exists, though.

"I think there are a number of aspects about this season which are unique, which add interest, and are quite compelling," he said. "Certainly, the All-Canadian division aspect is one of those."

Due to travel restrictions between Canada and the United States related to the COVID-19 pandemic, all seven teams north of the border are grouped together for the 56-game schedule.

The three divisions in the U.S. were also realigned into the West, Central, and East.

All teams in Canada except the Winnipeg Jets recently received permission from local health authorities to host games with no fans in attendance. Some franchises in the U.S. will allow spectators in a limited capacity.

The NHL regular season begins on Jan. 13. The first night on the schedule features two North Division clashes, with the Toronto Maple Leafs hosting the Montreal Canadiens, and the Vancouver Canucks visiting the Edmonton Oilers.

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Ontario Minister for Sport Lisa MacLeod announced Thursday that the Toronto Maple Leafs and Ottawa Senators will be allowed to host games in their home arenas this season.

"This approval was granted after close scrutiny of the rigorous health and safety protocols that will be adopted to keep players, staff, and our communities safe from the spread of COVID-19 while permitting Ontario's NHL teams to play the game we all love to watch," MacLeod said in a statement.

The decision was made "in consultation with Ontario's Chief Medical Officer of Health and with support from local officers of health in Ottawa and Toronto," the statement said.

British Columbia, Alberta, and Quebec have already given their teams permission to host games in their provinces. Manitoba has yet to give the Winnipeg Jets the green light.

The regular season is set to begin Jan. 13 with all the Canadian teams realigned into the North Division. The country's teams will exclusively play one another throughout the season.

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