2025-26 NHL Fantasy Hockey Week 16 Primer And Pickups: Sabres, Canadiens Goalies Worth Adding

With Monday being a holiday in the U.S., the fantasy hockey schedule for Week 16 offers a balanced slate with a minimum of six NHL games on each day. 

There are no light days on the schedule, and note there are just nine games on Saturday and six games on Sunday, giving fantasy managers few chances to load up over the weekend. 

Half the NHL will play four games, including six teams – the Minnesota Wild, Buffalo Sabres, Winnipeg Jets, New Jersey Devils, San Jose Sharks and New York Rangers – opening with a back-to-back. 

The Utah Mammoth and Los Angeles Kings have just two games, which means they're not ideal teams to mine for streaming options. The Kings, in particular, are such a low-upside team on offense that they may not be worth the trouble even with favorable matchups against the Rangers and St. Louis Blues. 

I noted in the previous NHL power rankings that we were waiting for the next domino to fall to get more trades going, and the Vegas Golden Knights acquired Rasmus Andersson on Sunday evening. This could get the rest of the league to start getting more active on the phones, and the list of sellers is growing now that the Calgary Flames have signalled they're ready to do business. The Vancouver Canucks, obviously, were the first to do so with Quinn Hughes, and more trades are expected to follow. 

Are the Rangers next, following Chris Drury's letter to the fans regarding their impending 'retool'? Could the Blues follow if the losses continue to pile up?

All positions and rostered percentages are courtesy of Yahoo Fantasy.

Pick players from teams at the top of the schedule matrix to maximize games and matchups. Green is good. Red is bad. Points percentages are as of Sunday morning.

That 5-4 loss to the Wild was a minor blip in an otherwise fantastic stretch from the Sabres, and Alex Lyon should not be a big threat to Luukkonen's playing time.

Any three-goalie rotation will be tough to handle, but the Sabres likely want to see what Lyon can provide. Ideally, Luukkonen and Colten Ellis, who have been largely responsible for the Sabres' recent charge, should be the tandem. 

Jacob Fowler was assigned to the minors, which means the Canadiens will move forward with Montembeault and Jakub Dobes for the time being.

Dobes and Fowler are exempt from waivers, which will make roster moves easy – maybe even a tad unpredictable – but it looks like the Habs are comfortable giving Montembeault the net until they figure out what to do moving forward. (The Habs were supposedly looking to deal one of their three goalies at one point.)

This means Montembeault's fantasy value will increase significantly, and at the very worst, he will be in line to snag some wins.

The Ducks' lines are in flux with several key players missing, which means Sennecke – and linemate Mikael Granlund – should see a boost in fantasy value. Dressing potentially 11 forwards also opens up more ice time for Sennecke, who's on a five-game points streak following a pretty quiet finish to 2025.

Sennecke's backcheck to prevent a Kevin Fiala breakaway in overtime that eventually led to Granlund's winner the other way is a good sign he's going to get lots of playing time going forward – coaches reward plays like that. 

Matt Boldy, Joel Eriksson Ek and Marcus Johansson are on the shelf, basically taking away the Wild's entire second scoring line.

In the meantime, Hartman has moved back up to first-line center between Kirill Kaprizov and Mats Zuccarello, putting him in a great position to get lots of ice time and score points – he has four goals in six games and recorded 22:10 of ice time against the Sabres. The Russian line is also back again with Tarasenko – two points against the Sabres – playing with Danila Yurov and Yakov Trenin.

The Russian line showed some good chemistry before getting broken up and might be able to recapture some of that magic. Tarasenko gains some power-play time with Boldy out of the lineup.

Certainly a speculative add as it's not exactly clear what the Lightning plan to do without Brayden Point, but note Paul was the center tapped to skate between Nikita Kucherov and Jake Guentzel.

Sunday's 4-1 win against the Stars saw the Lightning really spread out their ice time. Anthony Cirelli saw some time on the power play, but he hasn't scored many points in that spot, and it's interesting that Yanni Gourde had the most shifts and even-strength time on ice among centers.

However, if there's a bet on a center that will see increased fantasy value in Point's absence, Paul's the safest bet, giving his first-line left wing spot right now. 

The Jackets are undefeated under new coach Rick Bowness, and it was interesting that they went to Merzlikins for consecutive games.

Jet Greaves had been playing a lot, and Merzlikins was rewarded for a strong start against the Canucks, although, honestly, beating them isn't hard right now. Merzlikins beat the Pens in the following game but wasn't nearly as sharp. It does, however, look like the early beginnings of a potential goalie rotation. 

Bowness likes riding the hot hand when it comes to goaltending, so we might see a renewed battle for ice time. Right now, Greaves should still be considered the No. 1, though we may end up seeing a more 1A-1B situation. 

Schmid has won four straight for the Knights, and their defense should improve with Andersson in the fold.

Given how well Schmid has played recently, there will be less urgency to get Adin Hill up to speed, so there's a good chance a rotation will be implemented for the time being. The Olympics aren't too far off, and Hill can get some additional rest during that time.

It would be unwise to drop Schmid until Hill gets the bulk of the starts.

Jordan Binnington took another loss Sunday against the Draisaitl-less Oilers, and Hofer has clearly been the better option.

For whatever reason – and it's worth noting GM Doug Armstrong is in charge of Team Canada, who will take Binnington as their No. 1 going into the Olympics – the Blues have been reluctant to hand Hofer the net, but it does seem inevitable. 

Hofer's a speculative with the hope that he gets more starts down the road. You wonder if the Blues are just trying to stick with their rotation until the Olympics, see what Binnington does in Milan, and then decide how much more playing time they want to give him when he returns.

Johnson labored under Evason, but in his first game under Bowness, he skated 20:55 against the Flames and then at least 17 minutes in the two subsequent games. He's struggled this season with 14 points in 47 games after performing well under Evason last season, and this is a chance to start fresh without the burden of his first-half performance.

With triple-position eligibility, Johnson is a versatile depth scorer who can provide points, shots and blocks, though he's barely killed any penalties this season.

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