Monday Fantasy Cheat Sheet – Week 11: The Ottawa Express

Hi all, and welcome to week 11 of the NHL season. Normal schedule this week but be prepared for next week with the Christmas Holiday (there will be no games on Tue/Wed/Thurs i.e. Christmas Eve, Christmas day, AND the day after Christmas). 

• As it’s a typical weekly schedule of games our off-days this week are Monday, Wednesday, Friday, and Sunday. With the remaining days being busy days around the league.
• The top teams are listed in order by strength of schedule and opponent in the table below.
• The two teams playing only 2 matches this week are Vegas and the Islanders. I know that Barzal is coming off IR and may be on some waiver wires but resist the temptation to pick him up at least until Saturday if possible.

Top Streaming Team Schedules for the Week:

*Bolded days/matchups are on off-nights*

Top Streaming Targets for the Week:

• The Panthers have the best schedule of the week with 4 games on 4 off-nights. Anton Lundell – C had a hot start to the season but has cooled off considerably lately. That being said he’s probably your best option if he’s available and is currently sitting at less than 50% rostered on both ESPN and Yahoo. He’s centering the top line with Sam Reinhart, on the second power play, and averaging over 17 mins on ice per game. For a far more available forward if you’re in a deeper league I’d look at Evan Rodrigues – LW (around 5% rostered on both apps).
• As for the Caps, with the second best schedule of the week, there’s not a ton I’m excited about but Aliaksei Protas – LW has been on a bit of a heater the past handful of games. With 8 points in his last 8 games including two multi-point performances he’s not a bad option this week. He’s on the second line at full strength but is missing PP time so his ceiling is a bit capped unfortunately. Worth a look nonetheless for the reasons mentioned above.
• Seattle doesn’t have the strongest schedule of the bunch this week with only one off-night game on Sunday. However, Oliver Bjorkstrand – RW and Shane Wright – C have been absolutely killing it on the third line together over the past month plus. Bjorkstrand is going to be my pickup of the week due to his involvement on the 1st PP unit but I think Shane Wright (on the 2nd PP) is also a great add if either Bjorkstrand is already rostered or if you have the room for both.

I also mentioned last week that I did want to highlight a some buy-low candidates this week. I’ve been getting a few questions so far this season about what to do with guys who are starting off slow (Elias Pettersson, Jason Robertson, etc…) and my advice has generally been to hold strong on guys of that caliber unless your record is absolutely tanked already and you NEED to start winning matchups now to stay in the playoff hunt. But if you’re comfortable holding I think that’s the only option right now. But maybe you have some leaguemates who aren’t so comfortable holding these struggling star players… which is where we can potentially get some deals on guys who will help our teams down the stretch. Instead of just highlighting random players I’m actually going to point out two teams (and a few players on each of them) that I think tere’s currently have a lot of opportunity to buy on albeit for two very different reasons.

My first point of interest is any of a small handful of Rangers players right now. It’s no secret that the boys in blue are struggling big time this season and a few of their star players have really taken a fantasy dive along with that struggle. I’m mainly talking about Zibanejad, Kreider, and to a lesser degree (but if you’re in need of defense I think he’s worth a look) Adam Fox as well – in that particular order. I think right now you have some frantic managers out there who would be more than happy to offload most of these guys (Fox might take a little more doing) right now for either A.) a player (or players) you got later in the draft who is outperforming their ADP or B.) possibly even players that were grabbed off waivers early on this season (think Granlund, Marchment, Laine). Admittedly, picking up any of these guys is a bit risky but if I can get Kreider for Marchment straight up I’m doing that 9 times out of 10 even if the Rangers don’t get it together like I expect they will (I can’t imagine things don’t get at least somewhat better from here on out).

The second team I want to buy from right now, and I think you can definitely still buy low here, are the Ottawa Senators. I don’t know if people have been watching  many of their games lately but they’ve actually looked surprisingly good. The start of the season was a mess, they weren’t scoring a lot, Ullmark looked lost in net on his new team, it just wasn’t very pretty. But lately they ‘ve looked great. I dunno, but I’m all in. You’re obviously not buying Brady or Tim Stutzle low from anyone and if you can get Batherson that’s amazing but I doubt you’re getting him for all that cheap either. However, two guys on this team that I’m big-time in on buying right now are Josh Norris on offense and Jake Sanderson on defense. I think both of them are very undervalued currently and are key-contributors to this Ottawa squad, not to mention have been great for fantasy lately. Norris for his part has 20 points in 30 games played but 3 goals and 2 assists in his last 6 with 18 shots on goal as well which is something I love to see. Even if a forward isn’t necessarily scoring a ton if they’re shooting a lot that’s always a big plus for me. Sanderson has been quite good as well, although offense is not his game, he’s getting an absolutely insane 24:26 average TOI this season and is racking up banger stats every single game (that is to say hits and blocked shots). To add a bit of extra value he does have 15 assists so far on the season as well. Now I’m not saying you’re getting either of them for pennies, but I do think you can get them both for a reasonable price if you jump on the Ottawa train now – just don’t wait too long!