By this weekend, your fantasy hockey head-to-head teams will have likely had three matchups already in the books. Some NHL teams will have 13 games in the books before your week four matchups. Whether you are off to a sizzling start or trying to climb your way back to the lead of the pack before it is too late, you need to be active.
Be on the lookout for our waiver wire column and all the rest of our Fantasy Hockey content.
Week 4 Fantasy Hockey Preview
Weekly Lineup Picks
If you play in a weekly transaction league, your problem isn’t who plays more off-nights, but which skaters play more games. I will not venture into which goalies could be picked up for a week-long run because there are no strong picks for a goalie who would get two or more starts and is not likely to be owned already. You can check streamers below for a bit more from Western Canada’s fine franchises, the Calgary Flames and Vancouver Canucks, who play the only four-game schedules next week.
The bad news for Calgary is that these four games come in the form of four Eastern US away games, part of a five-game road trip that began this Saturday. Perhaps don’t pick up marginal Flames expecting a huge output. Unless you are in a very deep league, players under 50% owned are not among my targets unless I am particularly anxious to put up hits and blocks at the expense of points.
Must-starts: Johnny Gaudreau, Sean Monahan, Mark Giordano, Matthew Tkachuk, Elias Lindholm
Vancouver is slightly better off, traveling south along the coast to play the three California teams after hosting the Florida Panthers.
Must-starts: Elias Pettersson, Brock Boeser, Bo Horvat, Quinn Hughes, Alexander Edler, JT Miller
Marginal starts in weekly leagues:
- Tanner Pearson (LW-20% owned) is an attractive target. With half a point, three shots, and roughly a hit and a block each game, Pearson’s four-game week might well accumulate more stats than some of your marginal starters will. It doesn’t hurt that he sometimes gets to play with Bo Horvat on the top line and gets some power play time.
- Tyler Myers (D-43% owned): After receiving one of the most startling contracts in free agency, Myers will continue to get big minutes. Despite being presumably behind Hughes and Edler in the power-play defenseman hierarchy, Myers is still seeing a surprising 1:47 per game on the power play. While he has not yet recorded a point on special teams, he has a decent chance of running into a point or two on the right night.
On the other side, Ottawa has only one game. Teams with only two include Boston, LA, both New York teams, Pittsburgh, Toronto, and Vegas.
Must-starts: Pastrnak, Marchand, Bergeron, Kopitar, Doughty, Barzal, Brock Nelson, Zibanejad, Trouba, Panarin, Letang, Crosby, Guentzel, Brandon Tanev (in a hits/blocks league), Matthews, Marner, Rielly, Kapanen, Kerfoot, Stone, Pacioretty, Reilly Smith, William Karlsson, Paul Stastny, Ryan Reaves (in a hits/blocks league). You have my blessing to bench any skater from these teams not on this list.
Daily Head-to-Head Streamers:
Halloween next Thursday makes for an odd streaming schedule for fantasy hockey purposes. Normally we target Monday, Wednesday, Friday, and Sunday games. Next week the busiest nights are 18 teams on Tuesday, 16 on Friday, and 28 on Saturday. You might actually have open roster spots every day but Saturday, which opens the streaming possibilities widely. Picking players who have multiple off-nights is important to streaming, but in a week with so many nights available, you can be choosier. I recommend looking at the period of Monday through Wednesday first and getting a player with multiple games in that span, then swapping out again as you get close to the weekend. Six teams play two games during the first three days of the week: Arizona, Edmonton, Florida, Minnesota, Tampa Bay, and Vancouver. In addition to the Vancouver targets listed above, consider:
- Derek Stepan, C-Arizona (30% owned): Stepan skates on the top line between Clayton Keller and Phil Kessel. He also plays on the top power play and leads the Coyotes in average time on ice for forwards. Stepan has not had a great start to the season, but he is well-positioned to put up some points.
- Lawson Crouse, LW-Arizona (24% owned): Crouse’s game is to skate 11 minutes and hit a bunch of people. His 288 hits last season were second in the NHL. While he is a bit behind that pace this year, he has 27 hits in only nine games
- Zack Kassian, RW-Edmonton (49% owned): This feels like flat out cheating. Hey, I’m not in the 51% 0f leagues where he remains unowned but maybe you are. Current winner of the “best linemates to luck into” lottery four of the last five times the Oilers took the ice, Kassian combines the occasional combo with McDavid or Draisaitl and throwing an outstanding 3+ hits per game.
- Brett Connolly, LW/RW-FLA (25% owned): I like the part where he always plays with Mike Hoffman. I like the part where he gets some power-play minutes. I don’t like the part where his seven points came in eight games when his line was centered by Vincent Trocheck who has been hurt and replaced by Brian Boyle. Hopefully, Trocheck comes back by the time you make your streaming moves. A hit per game is a sneaky side benefit.
- Eric Staal, C-MIN (38% owned): Staal the eldest was ice cold to start the season. Last Tuesday he exploded with three of his five points on the season, probably not coincidentally with Mats Zuccarello on his wing for the first time since the opening week of the season – for both goals and the assist. There is a reason he was dropped almost everywhere in the past few weeks, but last week reminded us why he was so owned in the first place. Keep him in mind.
- Brad Hunt, D-MIN (17% owned): Okay, okay. I need to settle down here. Recommending a 31-year-old third-pairing defenseman with five blocks and no hits in 10 games is nonsense, but I just want to point out Hunt scored two power-play goals last week. He may not really be a Vince Dunn-y low minute power-play specialist, but if you are looking as bad as Minnesota is this year, maybe it is time to get weird with anything that sort of works.
Goalies:
- Thatcher Demko, G-VAN (47% owned): If Jacob Markstrom had not decided to become pretty good, Demko might be having a breakout performance this year. A touted prospect, Demko has a .943 save percentage, 1.64 GAA, and two wins on the year (in the third game, Vancouver lost 0-1). All three of his starts this season came when Markstrom was away from the Canucks and Vancouver doesn’t have another back-to-back until November. Let’s put it this way: on Monday, Vancouver gets Florida who is at the end of a back-to-back and the end of a three-game Western Canada road trip. Vancouver and Miami are the two NHL cities furthest apart. On Wednesday, Vancouver gets the Kings. If I see Demko starting either game, I pounce.
- Sam Montembeault G-FLA (16% owned): Ironically, I’m also game for the other half of the Canucks/Panthers matchup. I’ve already mentioned the Vancouver game will be the back end of a back to back, which means he is virtually assured the net. All three of his starts this year have been high-quality. Montembeault is another goalie who might be more in the spotlight had the Panthers not signed one extremely expensive goalie and drafted a second in the first round.
What’s your take on tWeek 4 of Fantasy Hockey? Let us know in the comments below. We promise we won’t tell anyone in your league.
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