Fantasy Hockey 2024-25: Weekly Strength of Schedule and Streaming Targets — Week 8

Identifying the players with four games each week and filling your roster with those players can increase your chances of winning your fantasy hockey matchup. That’s why our Weekly Schedule tool is so helpful!

I combined that weekly schedule with a Team Defense Score I created using key defensive metrics to find which teams/skaters have the best schedule this week.

How it Works:

Team Defensive Ratings are given on a scale of 0-100, with 0 being the best possible defensive team and 100 being the worst.
SCORE: The sum of all the Defensive Ratings the team will face this week.
AVG Opponent: The Average Defensive Ratings that the team will face this week.
The strength of the Schedule is determined by the sum of defensive ratings because we want players who play the most games but also have the easiest matchups.
Light Nights: A night in the NHL with eight or fewer games.

Week 8 – Strength of Schedule

Week 8 Streaming Targets

Because of American Thanksgiving, this week’s NHL Schedule is inverted. Your typical light nights (Monday, Wednesday, and Friday) are now your busy nights. And because the NHL takes Thursday off entirely, all of the games are jammed into six days. That means there are only two light nights this week (Tuesday and Sunday), making streaming extremely challenging.

Before making any waiver wire adds, set your lineup for the week and find where your holes are. Because of the schedule, you won’t have many on Monday, Wednesday, Friday or Saturday. For example, here’s a look at the “holes” for my league of record team this week:

Monday – 1 D spot open
Tuesday – Light Night (Stream)
Wednesday – No open spots
Thursday – No Games
Friday – No open spots
Saturday – 1 D spot open
Sunday – Light Night (Stream)

So, looking at this, my best bet is to stream a defenseman with good matchups on Monday and Saturday and bonus points if they also play on Tuesday or Sunday. The teams that fit that criteria are Ottawa (Jake Sanderson and Thoams Chabot are rostered) and Anaheim, making Olen Zellweger (20% rostered) the best option for me.

Everyone’s gaps are going to be different this week, so use the Strength of Schedule tool to help determine who the best streaming targets are. If you have forward gaps on busy nights, then targeting the Kraken skaters like Matty Beniers (C – 13%) and Jaden Schwartz (C – 3%) makes the most sense. They have an incredible schedule this week.

If you don’t have gaps on the busy nights, then target the following teams with play on both light nights:

Vancouver Canucks

Kiefer Sherwood (LW/RW) – 40% Rostered

Sherwood has become a banger-league legend. He’s on a four-game point streak with goals in three straight. During those four games he had three goals, two assists, 11 SOG and an absurd 30 hits (7.5 hits per game). With Brock Boeser and J.T. Miller out, Sherwood is not only skating with Elias Pettersson at 5v5 but also on PP1. He’s probably not available in many banger leagues (if any) but he’s got standard league appeal as well.

Jake DeBrusk (LW/RW) – 36% Rostered

DeBrusk had a sluggish start in Vancouver, going goalless in his first nine games, but has five goals and four assists (nine points) in his last ten games. Like Sherwood, he’s seen a usage increase recently and is also skating with Pettersson at 5v5 and on the top power-play unit.

Conor Garland (RW) – 31% Rostered

Garland deserves to be higher owned due to his usage. In his last ten games, Garland is averaging 20:20 TOI/gm and has picked up two goals, eight assists and 19 SOG. His shot volume is down a bit this season but has improved recently, as he’s been taken off of Pettersson’s line and reunited with Dakota Joshua.

Boston Bruins

Pavel Zacha (C/LW) – 11% Rostered

Zacha has been skating on the Bruins’ top line and top power-play unit recently, but due to their low-scoring nature, it hasn’t resulted in much offence for the 27-year-old. Zacha has two goals, two assists (four points), and 18 SOG (2.3 SOG/gm) in his last eight games. He’s not a high-upside pick, but he’s in a role to produce on the light nights this week.

Montreal Canadiens

Brendan Gallagher (RW) – 2% Rostered

It’s been a tough couple of months in Montreal, but at 32 years old, Gallagher is showing that he’s still got some game. He’s been really impressive in the last month, scoring six goals with four assists (10 points) in 12 games. It’s not sustainable, as he’s shooting 31.6 percent on 19 SOG during that stretch, but he’s a decent short-term option in difficult situations like this week.