If you’re playing head-to-head leagues this season, there’s arguably nothing more important to consider than the NHL schedule.
We can consider team vs. team matchups and fiddle with predictive models all we want, but the one thing that is set in stone (barring a force majeure) is the schedule. All things being equal, a player on a team playing four games will earn more fantasy points than a player on a team playing fewer games.
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There are 24 weeks of play this season on Yahoo. Depending on your league setup, playoffs will likely start on Week 20 or 21 and run through until Week 23. The last fantasy week of the season is usually ignored due to higher-than-usual variance in team rosters, mostly because playoff-bound teams will be resting their key players while lottery teams will be making call-ups from their minor league teams. Because the regular season ends on a Thursday, Week 24 will be extra long, running from Monday, April 6 until April 16.
The big wrinkle this season is the Olympic break, which will occur during Week 18. This means Week 18 will run extra long, running from Monday, Feb. 2 to Sunday, March 1. This is, in my memory, the longest matchup I’ve ever seen in fantasy hockey, running close to a month before a winner is decided.
Due to the Olympic break during Week 18, however, only five teams – Sabres, Panthers, Islanders, Penguins and Capitals – will play a league-high six games. The NHL action will be very sparse, but we might see the best hockey we’ll ever see with a best-on-best tournament featuring nearly all of the NHL’s best players.
If we’re maximizing the team with the most games per week, that would be the Mammoth, who will have 10 weeks where they play the most games. That’s followed by the Kraken with nine weeks, but one of them is Week 24, meaning there are only eight weeks in which they play the most games, tying them with the Blackhawks, Blue Jackets, Predators, Devils, Rangers and Penguins.
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The absolute worst teams are the Avalanche, Panthers, Kings, Canadiens, Blues and Canucks, who have only five weeks where they play the most games.
I’ve broken up the games played per week of fantasy play by team below.
Plan wisely.
Courtesy Jason Chen, The Hockey News