Fantasy Hockey Head-to-Head Primer: Add Backlund and Gustavsson

Jason Chen previews the week in fantasy hockey, starting with six games on a holiday Monday. Filip Gustavsson and Mikael Backlund are some players to watch.

Monday is a holiday, which is why there are more games than usual to keep in mind for fantasy hockey. Monday and Friday will both feature six games, while Wednesday will be lighter than usual with only three games. 

It will be a busy week for most teams with 12 teams playing a week-high four games, and only four teams will play two games, including a weird schedule quirk for the Avs, who play their two games back-to-back. This is good because it gives Cale Makar a chance to heal up, but it also means Alexandar Georgiev and Justus Annunen should split the starts.

The Ducks, Kings and Senators will be on the road the entire week, while the Coyotes, Panthers, Hurricanes, Devils and Sharks play all their games at home. Home-road splits can be difficult to take advantage of even though the home team should have the advantage most of the time. Case in point, the Devils are much stronger on the road (21-4-3) than they are at home (15-10-2), while the Coyotes are much better than usual at intimate Mullett Arena (12-8-2) but routinely get beaten up on the road (7-20-7).

Here’s your Week 19 schedule breakdown.

Legend:
P% = season points percentage
Opp. P% = opponents’ season points percentage
Diff. = difference between P% and Opp. P%

Pick players from teams at the top of the schedule matrix to maximize games and matchups. Green is good. Red is bad. All advanced stats courtesy naturalstatrick.com. All positions and rostered percentages are courtesy of Yahoo fantasy.

1. Ivan Provorov, D, PHI (2.28)

2. Mikhail Sergachev, D, TB (2.23)

3. Jonas Brodin, D, MIN (2.19)

4. Trevor van Riemsdyk, D, WSH (2.17)

5. Rasmus Ristolainen, D, PHI (2.16)

6. Scott Mayfield, D, NYI (2.05)

7. Chris Tanev, D, CGY (2.04)

8. Marcus Pettersson, D, PIT (2.02)

9. Matt Roy, D, LA (1.89)

10. Jacob Middleton, D, MIN (1.85)

1. Matt Martin, LW, NYI (3.90)

2. Nicolas Deslauriers, LW, PHI (3.89)

3. Garnet Hathaway, RW, WSH (3.36)

4. Martin Fehervary, D, WSH (3.28)

5. Wade Allison, RW, PHI (3.11)

6. Jeff Petry, D, PIT (3.08)

7. Patrick Brown, C, PHI (3.03)

8. Brendan Lemieux, LW, LA (2.93)

9. Brandon Duhaime, LW/RW, MIN (2.91)

10. Zach Bogosian, D, TB (2.90)

Gustavsson got his second straight start Sunday against the Preds and made 23 saves for the win thanks to Ryan Hartman’s winner with 21 seconds left to play in regulation. Since Jan. 1, Gustavsson ranks third (!) in the league in save percentage and second in goals-against average with a minimum of 10 games played, and he’s forced his way into a bigger timeshare with Marc-Andre Fleury taking a back seat. The problem is the Wild can’t score. They’re 29th in goals-for per game during that span, which means wins will be really hard to come by for fantasy managers. However, given the quality of Gustavsson’s play, he’s a quality pickup in all formats.

Cam Talbot is expected to return in a couple weeks, if not sooner, which means Mandolese will likely go back to AHL Belleville. In the meantime, look for Sogaard to make most of the starts, and he’s 2-0-1 since taking over from Anton Forsberg. They’ve been close games save for the 7-2 thrashing of the Blues on Sunday, but it’s a tough road coming up (Boston, Carolina, Montreal), then a back-to-back at home against the red-hot Wings before visiting the Rangers to kick off March. There might be some value for Sogaard as a streaming option while the Sens’ offense runs hot, but he’s a dicey plan considering his performances have been just good and not great, and the Sens will go back to Talbot immediately once he’s healthy.

Grubauer’s won three of his past four starts and is once again the starter with Martin Jones as the backup. Jones’ fantasy value was expectedly short-lived, and aside from the 9-2-0 performance in January, he’s had a sub-.880 SP and a GAA over 3.09 in three other months. Grubauer shouldn’t be trusted, either, but he’s obviously the better goalie right now and since Jan. 1 sports a 5-2-2 record with a .926 SP and 1.97 GAA. The Kraken are a pretty good team, so they’ll get the wins, but the peripherals will continue to be ugly.

So far, Hill’s shown he’s capable of being the starter, and on a good team, he’s worth rostering in fantasy. He’s not an upper-tier goalie by any means, but with the Knights’ goalie-friendly system and weak competition in the Pacific, you could do much worse. It’s unlikely Hill will steal any games, but with the offense behind Jack Eichel coming alive to help provide goal support, it wouldn’t be surprising to see Hill be a borderline top-20 fantasy goalie by the end of the season.

The Kings’ defense just isn’t very good, and their defensive problems compound when Jonathan Quick is in net. The Kings have not been linked to any goalie on the trade market just yet, but it’s totally conceivable that they look for some goaltending help. Until that time, keep rostering and playing Copley. Since Copley joined the team in early December, according to naturalstattrick.com, he’s been slightly better than the league average.

Fabbri’s on a five-game point streak with three goals and six assists, doing most of his damage on the power play with help from Dylan Larkin. Fabbri’s a talented winger who hasn’t been able to stay healthy, but now that he is, he can be a solid addition to any fantasy team for scoring.

The Devils’ re-shuffled lines see Mercer on the top line with Nico Hischier and Tomas Tatar. Mercer’s been in this spot before, so there’s at least some familiarity. After scoring just three goals in each of December and January, Mercer is on a three-game goal streak with four goals scored already in February.

For most of the season, Backlund’s line with Andrew Mangiapane and Blake Coleman had some of the best possession and expected goals numbers for the season, according to moneypuck.com. Their point production never really reflected that, but it’s changed recently, with Backlund scoring 17 points, Mangiapane scoring 14 and Coleman scoring 13 in their past 18 games. Mangiapane was never going to match last season’s 35-goal output (thanks to an 18.9% SP) and Coleman’s not a scorer, but they’re generating many chances, and Backlund has the most upside.