November seems early in the fantasy hockey season, doesn’t it? It is never too early for a weekly lineup preview. Depending on your league’s schedule, you might already be a quarter of the way to the playoffs. Whether you are dominating your league or in a tailspin from losing Vlad Tarasenko or Mikko Rantanen, now is the time to grind, hustle, and stream your way to the promised land of March playoffs. Loosen up that roster! Winners are constantly turning over their team to pile up games played, so here are a few lineup picks and H2H streamers for Week 5 Fantasy Hockey.
Be on the lookout for our waiver wire column and all the rest of our Fantasy Hockey content.
Week 5 Fantasy Hockey Preview
Weekly Lineup Picks
Standard disclaimer: weekly leagues aren’t about what days games are on, they are about how many games your guys play. To that end, there are a decent 12 teams with 4-game weeks. Think about it: a guy playing four games only needs to be half as good as a 2-game player to match the results.
Teams with 4 Games in Week 5 Fantasy Hockey:
Arizona, Boston, Chicago, Detroit, Edmonton, New Jersey, New York Rangers, Ottawa, Philadelphia, Toronto, Vancouver, and Vegas.
You should prioritize starting any of your normal starters from these teams. If you need to supplement with some longer shots, consider adding the following lottery tickets and steady backups from our twelve teams, owned in less than 25% of Fantrax leagues but primed to accumulate some value next week. You may have more options available to you, but my object is to identify some guys who are available almost everywhere.
My weekly skater targets for general contributions:
Filip Chytil (C/RW – NYR) is rising fast up the boards. This is a great time to grab him, get your four starts, and see how things develop. While his rookie season was up and down, Chytil’s talent has flashed – like in his 2019-20 debut last week that came with a goal. Power play and second-line deployment are good enough for the bottom of my active roster – buy quickly.
Anthony Duclair (LW/RW – OTT) has found a home in the vacuum of Ottawa. For the last three games, he has been moved up to the top line next to personal man-crush Brady Tkachuk and rookie Centerman Logan Brown. (Incidentally, can we all agree to start calling that kid Lo-Bro?) Those three games happened to feature four points from Duclair.
Christian Dvorak (C – ARI) has not tallied results yet this year, but his continued use on the power play and recent move to play between Phil Kessel and Clayton Keller on the first line have me optimistic.
Charlie Coyle (C/RW – BOS) had a major bump up in minutes last week from the 14/15 minute range to over 20 minutes in two straight games. The second of these two included over five minutes on the Power Play. He rewarded the Bruins with two goals, an assist, and 13 shots over two games. Now, those three points represent the majority of Coyle’s total over the 12 games of the season so far but it may be worth a roll of the dice.
Darren Helm (LW/RW – DET) has some things going for him. He has spent the last three games next to Dylan Larkin, taking the place of Anthony Mantha. That gives him just enough promise to be worth a flyer. Expect two shots and a hit every game, but do not be surprised if he manages a couple of points next week.
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My weekly skater targets for peripherals only:
Lawson Crouse (LW – ARI) had exactly 3 hits in 6 straight games. Deployment is poor and points are rare, but you know what you’re getting. If you happen to need his thing from a left-winger, here you go.
Zdeno Chara (D – BOS) is old reliable. Consigned to an afterthought in fantasy, he still puts up solid shots, hits, blocks, and even PIM. As long as he gets his 20 minutes per game he still has value as a steady low-level building block across a multi-cat league.
Calvin de Haan (D – CHI) gives you no shot at points. None — give up on that. On the other hand, if you are in a weekly category league, his pace so far would equate to 15 hits and a dozen blocks over a four-game stretch. Would that be useful to you?
Kris Russell (D-EDM) does one thing well: block shots. His 34 so far this year in 14 games are second in the NHL. In case you are unfamiliar with his career, this is not unusual. In six straight seasons, he has ended the year in the top three in the league in blocked shots. Four games of that pace could steal you a category singlehandedly, so long as you can endure the nothing he will post everywhere else.
Mark Borowiecki (D – OTT) has had 44 hits, 20 blocks, and 16 PIMs in 11 games so far. That is typical Borowiecki. To call him physical is an understatement.
Ryan Reaves (RW – VGK) is a paradox. He is only 12% owned. If you play in a league without hits, he is not worth rostering. If you play in a league where hits count, his league-leading 65 makes him indispensable and therefore probably not available. If you somehow find yourself in a peripherals league where Reaves is a free agent, pick him up. You will not be dropping him for a while.
Weekly skaters with bad schedules I will still start:
On the flip side, there are five teams with a measly 2-game week coming up. Those teams are Anaheim, Buffalo, Dallas, Tampa Bay, and Washington. Tampa Bay and Buffalo have the additional complication of playing their two games in a jetlagged back-to-back in Stockholm, Sweden as a part of the Global Series. While you cannot bench your stars on those teams, marginal players from these squads should not be in your week 5 lineup.
Players I have to still start from these teams in weekly lineup leagues, despite the lousy schedules, are: Jack Eichel, Rasmus Dahlin, Jeff Skinner, Sam Reinhart, Tyler Seguin, John Klingberg, Steven Stamkos, Nikita Kucherov, Victor Hedman (if healthy), Brayden Point, Alex Ovechkin, Evgeny Kuznetsov, and John Carlson. If you are outraged by someone left off this list (say, Nicklas Backstrom or Jamie Benn) just remember again – all a four gamer has to do is post 50% the results of one of these players to outpace them for the week.
Daily Head-to-Head Streamers:
I play daily transaction leagues much more frequently than weekly leagues. The strategy with daily moves is not just games, but games on the “quality” nights where the majority of the league is idle (Monday, Wednesday, Friday, and Sunday.) Still, it makes sense that the teams who play on the most off-nights are also the four-game teams covered above. You can refer back to the players above to see the marginal guys I’ll target for the off-nights.
The Detroit Red Wings and the Edmonton Oilers play the ideal Monday-Wednesday-Friday-Sunday schedule, giving you a four-start advantage. Drop a guy at the bottom of your roster who plays only on the busy nights and take a chance on one of these guys.
Next best are the New York Rangers with three quality games including a nice Monday/Wednesday schedule with juicy matchups hosting Ottawa and Detroit.
Ottawa, Boston, and Arizona suffer from having only one quality game before Thursday, but have the decency to play a quality game on Monday night. Vancouver, New Jersey, Chicago, Philadelphia, Toronto, and Vegas have their quality games at the end of the week, which is not what I want from my streamers.
Otherwise, you will be chasing individual nights with your streaming slot. None of the teams not mentioned play even two quality games on weekdays next week.
Goalie forecast:
Arizona, Boston, Buffalo, Chicago, Florida, New Jersey, New York Rangers, Ottawa, Philadelphia, St. Louis, Tampa Bay, Toronto, Vancouver, and Vegas play back-to-backs at some point next week. Backups from these squads might get a start at some point during the week.
Mike Smith or Mikko Koskinen could be interesting targets. While they have split the Edmonton net fairly evenly in 2019-20, both have put up excellent stats for the surprising Oilers. If you pick up one and he gets even two starts in four games, they will come on quality nights. Jimmy Howard and Jonathan Bernier have the same arrangement and schedule quality next week with substantially greater risk of destroying your percentages.
For more Week 5 Fantasy Hockey talk be sure to tune into my weekly podcast Fantasy Hockey Life right here on FantraxHQ for more streamer suggestions, great guest interviews, analysis, and general fantasy hockey tomfoolery. Find it wherever you download podcasts.
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