Take a minute and think back to when the season was about to begin, and you were preparing all of your lists and rankings for forwards, defensemen and goalies. All your preparation for your head to head fantasy hockey drafts has paid off and here you are in a playoff spot heading into the money rounds.
In many setups online, those who finished in the top two seeds will get a buy first. Whoever finished in third place will faceoff this week against whoever finished sixth place. Leaving fourth place and fifth place in a head to head to ultimately decide who gets a shot at the top two seeds next week in the semifinals.
If your playoff battle is this week, it’s in your best interest to read over who plays how many games this week, and study the back-to-back games. You want to be prepared for any possible back-up goalie spot start options as possible, as well as using your moves each week as strategically as possible. Be creative, and have a game plan, it could change if someone scoops up a player you want through the free agency, which is why you have to be on the ball and use a waiver move if need be. After all, its playoffs and this is your big shot to cash in!
Number of games played this week:
(4) Games: Anaheim – Calgary – Chicago – Edmonton – Florida – Los Angeles – Minnesota – Montreal – New Jersey – New York Islanders – Pittsburgh – San Jose – Vancouver – Winnipeg
(3) Games: Arizona – Boston – Buffalo – Carolina – Colorado – Columbus – Dallas – Detroit – Nashville – New York Rangers – Ottawa – Philadelphia – St Louis – Tampa Bay – Toronto – Washington
As you can see, there are no teams that only play two games and a number who play four. This is going to be one high scoring week fantasy wise, so prepare for some big numbers and make sure you get the most out of each slot on your team. Use those weekly moves and use them wisely!
Starting Goalies:
(FLA) Luongo VS (NYI) Greiss (LA) Quick VS (CHI) Crawford (STL) Allen VS (CLG) Ortio (NSH) Rinne VS (EDM) Talbot (WPG) Pavelec VS (VAN) Miller (NJ) Kinkaid VS (ANA) Gibson
*bold is starting – italics is probable*
Looking at the weekly schedule, here are some tips for preparing…
Florida, Los Angeles and the New York Islanders are all playing both Monday and Tuesday. Keep an eye on who starts for Florida tonight; if Luongo – you will likely see Montoya for the other game, and he could be a quality spot start. With LA facing off against Chicago tonight and Crawford already inked in, I would imagine the Kings go with Quick tonight and Enroth tomorrow. The Kings play against the Stars tomorrow who have been battling their way through this second half, a decent spot start option, but not nearly as good as the Montoya option. As for the Islanders, it’s hard to say at this point. With Greiss taking over the starting duties after Halak got hurt, you may seem him get both starts unless the Isles choose to roll with Jean-Francois Berube for tomorrow night’s game against Pittsburgh.
If you are in position ‘A’ and you have a buy this week, make sure you take a look at next week’s schedule and adjust your roster accordingly. Keep an eye out for someone who is playing this week to drop a player you might like, it could happen as they desperately attempt to win their matchup this week. Perhaps they have a player on Nashville (who doesn’t play this Saturday or Sunday). If so, they could drop a high end forward or defensemen from their roster to get two games played from that slot. If that’s the case and you score a James Neal, Roman Josi, Shea Weber, Ryan Johansen or a Filip Forsberg, then by all means it’s a worthy pickup. These are the types of things I look for each season when the playoffs approach. You never know if you are going to win or lose the week by a single point, so anything you can do to give yourself the advantage is worth your small amount of time invested.
HBSL (sweet sixteen):
Congratulations to everyone in both the free and season ticket holders’ version of the HockeyBuzz SuperLeague who has made the sweet sixteen. Week after week of setting up victorious rosters is not an easy task. Be sure to go over any injuries that may have happened over the weekend and adjust those rosters accordingly.
Best of luck to everyone this week!
Thanks for reading.