Who to Start and Who to Sit in Fantasy Hockey (Week of Jan. 31)

Some NHL teams are about to be really busy this week, giving your fantasy team a big boost. Jason Chen gets you up-to-date on trends you need to win your matchups this week.

Week 16 in head-to-head Yahoo leagues will run for two weeks from Jan. 31 to Feb. 13 since there will be no games from Thursday to Sunday due to the start of the Olympics. 

The NHL has wisely used the two-week period originally scheduled for the Olympics to fill in a ton of postponed games, which means that teams that have played far fewer games than everyone else, such as the Sens and Isles, will be very active, while three teams – Kings, Sharks and Rangers – will play just one game.

This odd schedule quirk presents an extra challenge for fantasy managers since default leagues are only allowed five adds for the week. Though it may be tempting to pick up players on a team playing two games from Monday to Wednesday, such as the Panthers, Blackhawks and Kraken, note that those players will probably end up sitting on the bench for nearly the entire week afterward. The best way to manage Week 16 is to probably sit tight for the first week then use up all of your adds in the second week.

However, note that Tuesday will feature the busiest slate with 11 games, and then after the break, it picks up again with Tuesday and Thursday featuring seven games and Saturday featuring eight. The Sens and Devils lead the way with seven and six games scheduled, respectively, but not that the matchups definitely don’t favor them.

Legend:

P% = season points percentage
Opp. P% = opponents’ season points percentage
Diff. = difference between P% and Opp. P%
Green is good. Red is bad. All advanced stats courtesy naturalstatrick.com.

Ottawa Senators

The Sens are at the top of the schedule matrix because they play a league-high seven games. The good news is that the Sens can potentially find a rhythm while the rest of the league takes an extended break, but the bad news is that some of the matchups will be very challenging, and three of their top-six forwards – Josh Norris, Drake Batherson and Connor Brown – will likely be unavailable. Still, quantity is king, so it might be good to target Tyler Ennis, Alex Formenton or even Adam Gaudette, players who would normally not register on anyone’s radar but could be sneaky grabs because they’re playing on the top two lines with some power-play time to boot.

Washington Capitals

After a back-to-back against the Pens on the road and the Oilers at home, the Caps face relatively easy competition the rest of the week. Their 0.152 difference in P% against their opponents for the second half of Week 16 elevate the value of their fantasy options, which includes newly-minted all-star Evgeny Kuznetsov, and also less heralded players such as Daniel Sprong or Conor Sheary, who flank Nicklas Backstrom on the second line, or top prospect Connor McMichael and veteran farmhand Joe Snively on the third line, who has scored two points in his first two NHL games and has been a point-per-game playing in the AHL.

Backup goalies

The Sens, Devils, Flames, Islanders, Canucks and Coyotes all play two sets of back-to-backs in Week 16, ensuring that their backups will likely get two games. The Caps, Oilers, Hurricanes, Jets, Kraken, Habs, Knights and Panthers get only one back-to-back, meaning that for perhaps the only time all season, holding on to a backup for more than just one start might be a good idea. Those opportunities provide additional fantasy value to Daniel Vladar, Semyon Varlamov, Jaroslav Halak, Vitek Vanecek, Stuart Skinner, Antti Raanta, Eric Comrie, Chris Driedger, Laurent Brossoit and Spencer Knight, who are fairly reliable backups and have a chance to earn a few extra wins for your fantasy team.

New York Islanders

The Isles returned from the holiday break winning four of their first five games, but have now lost three of their past four as their mid-season turnaround seemingly comes to a halt. It’s been a tough season, but despite ranking seventh on the schedule matrix it may be better to err on the side of caution and see how the Islanders do before committing to them. Semyon Varlamov and Ilya Sorokin will very likely spit their Tuesday-Wednesday back-to-back, and those should be winnable games against the Kraken and Sens.

But following that will be a three-game road trip through Western Canada, and while the Oilers and Flames are currently not in playoff position, they are definitely playoff-caliber teams and will be a strong challenge against the Isles. One reason for optimism: Anders Lee has only two goals in January but his line with Mat Barzal and Josh Bailey has been quite good all season, and during Lee’s most recent cold spell dating back to Jan. 13, all three players have underperformed their 5v5 xGF.