Tuesday, July 14

Neil Parker

2015-07-14

The NHL Schedule, Dallas Stars and more …

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While the National Hockey League schedule doesn’t have the impact on fantasy as it does in the National Football League, it shouldn’t be an afterthought, either.

NHL.com fantasy analyst Matt Sitkoff tweeted out a table of the schedule with the games broken down by day of the week for each team.

In weekly head-to-head leagues, the schedule’s fantasy impact is the biggest.

For example, if your roster is comprised of players from teams who play the majority of their games Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday nights, you could be consistently benching players in action. Losing man games is especially hindering to your counting stats.

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Additionally, with Sunday being the clinching day, having a stud or two with plenty of tilts on Sunday could help win a few categories a season.

Still …

During the course of the season, you should view your waiver wire as an extension of your bench and consistently be adding a four-game player or two from your wire weekly. So really, this isn’t a huge consideration.

I’ll leave this to the masses. Until it turns into a suspension and games lost, this is a fantasy non-factor. I assume it isn’t going to ever become that type of situation, though. Still, something to keep an eye on.

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I will address the Ryan O’Reilly topic on this level, though.

Things happen, and sometimes guys make the wrong decisions. However, why don’t professional teams make a larger effort to protect their investments and eliminate the chances for these things to happen?

For example, 24-hour limousine hook ups might help out. I realize at the end of the day it is an individual’s choice to utilize such a service, but if something like that is readily available, it might be easier to make the right decision.

Who knows, but after signing up to pay someone $70 million, it doesn’t seem out of the question to pay someone else a nice wage to make sure things like this don’t happen.

It worked with Josh Hamilton for a long time, and for all intents and purposes, it is working again. Looking at it from another angle, call it a hedged bet.