Looking Ahead – Week 6

A tough decision can be made easier with these charts showing you the best five and worst five schedules for upcoming seven-day periods. Some of you used them last year but for the benefit of new readers here is a refresher. The number next to the team indicates the ‘multiplier’ to use on a player’s point-per-game pace to give you an idea how many points to expect for that week.

For the first time in a long time, the Wings are your top play for a weekly schedule (Monday-Sunday). They've also scored 10 goals in their last two games against Anaheim and Colorado, with increased efforts from Franzen, Filppula, Cleary and Kronwall. With Dubnyk getting smoked by the Bruins on the Thursday, the Wings will face Khabibulin and  the Oilers on Friday, and Kari Lehtonen and the Stars on Saturday. What would have been two more five goal games last year is now expected to be two defensive matchups. Detroit has also strengthened their play on the back end, allowing only 2.38 goals per game so far.

The Kings have now lost six of their last seven, and get to play the white hot Wild on Saturday night. While losing six of seven is never a good thing, four of those losses came against Edmonton, Pittsburgh, San Jose and Vancouver. They have a home and home against the struggling Ducks next week, which will see Jonathan Bernier get some more action. It might be the break that he needs to even out the playing time between him and Quick.

From the bad to the good (but kind of bad) ; the New York Rangers have now won five in a row. While Marian Gaborik and Derek Stepan have seven points each in those five wins, Brad Richards only has a goal and an assist, while Dubinsky and Callahan only have a point each in their last four. They won't have much of a chance to improve on those stats for a while, as they play a league low seven times in the next 21 days.

Pittsburgh's window has games played leader has all but closed as they're back in the "Best Bets" section after a two game week last week. We all know Sidney Crosby will not be returning this weekend, but fantasy owners should be praying for a return for their awesome Tuesday-Monday schedule this week. They face Colorado, Tampa Bay, Florida and Long Island in that span.