Ryan Getzlaf is planning to retire at the end of the season. He had an excellent start to the year, propped up by some high percentages, but as the campaign has progressed it does appear that he is nearly running on empty. He had an incredibly impressive career, winning all of the important titles including Olympic Gold and the Stanley Cup. On top of that he spent his entire 18-year career with one team, and at this point he has to be the most famous Anaheim (Mighty) Duck of all time.

Congrats on an incredible career and a well-deserved retirement.

Thank you, Captain. #FlyTogether https://t.co/36YM5HiEXQ

— Anaheim Ducks (@AnaheimDucks) April 5, 2022

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Both Scott Laughton and Bowen Byram returned to the lineup last night after each missed several games with concerning concussions. Byram hasa long history of head/neck issues, so he really has to proceed with caution here. There is a long and impactful career at stake, though in the short term he makes the Coloarado blue line even better, and is worth a look in standard fantasy leagues. He's only 19% rostered on Yahoo, so check your waiver wires (69% owned on Fantrax).

Laughton has also had some concussion issues lately, and took a little longer than initially anticipated to be cleared to return this time around – however the Flyers are on the outside of the playoff picture, so there really was no need to rush him. Now that he is back, he brings a wide range of production to your fantasy lineup. The 27-year old is up over a point every other game, and adds one PIM every two games, nearly two shots per game, two Hits per game, and six FOWs. To top it off he also blocks more shots than the average forward, and has two SHPs on the season. The more categories your league counts, the better Laughton looks.

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New Jersey's superstar Jack Hughes is done for the season after sustaining an MCL strain. The team is playing it cautious, and rightfully so with nothing left to play for this year. He finishes the season on pace for 94 points. The kid is just getting started.

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Speaking of absurd point paces, Roman Josi notched three points to bring him up to 84 on the year, meaning he has guaranteed a point-per-game finish for the first time in his career. Nashville still has 13 games left in the season, and they're still sitting on the playoff bubble, which means we're not going to see the effort level dip anytime soon.

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Erik Kallgren was hurt trying to make a save in the second period, and had to leave the game. He returned to the bench partway through the third, but we could see Jack Campbell shouldering a much heavier workload to close out the season if Kallgren is more than day-to-day.

In the same game, the Leafs goalies combined to blow a four-goal lead, and in that scoring barrage by the Panthers, Jonathan Huberdeau notched point #100. Huby's linemates have also been clicking, with Claude Giroux up to nine points in the eight games since he joined the team and the top power play unit, while Sam Bennett is also up to seven points in the six games since Giroux joined their line.

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I wanted to dive into the schedule around the NHL for the next few weeks because we're really getting into crunch time. Often times when I have tried to piece together my team early in the year to take advantage of better H2H schedules, I don't have enough early games to win the tight matchups and I end up missing the playoffs or playing against the top teams early on. Keep that in mind for next year, don't focus on the schedules until at least after Christmas, and ideally not until after Valentine's Day.

We're now into either week one or two of the H2H playoffs for most leagues, and if you're in Roto you're either trying to sort out how to manage to cut down your man games, or maximize who is playing when to catch up in games (after the craziness to start the year with all the missed games, it's likely the latter).

Teams to focus on:

Now, this is often the coverage of the Looking Ahead column, but it's also something I very much enjoy strategizing with to really get a leg up come the end of the year, so bear with me here.

From now until Sunday April 24^th (2.5 fantasy weeks), only one team plays 11 or more games, and that's the St. Louis Blues. They also play more than half of those games against non-playoff teams, making it one of the easiest stretches of hockey over the next few weeks as well. When you put together that kind of quantity and quality, that's when you can narrow down the guys that may really make a difference for you off of the waiver wire.

Depending on league size, relevant players from the Blues that might be on your waiver wire include: Ivan Barbashev, Nick Leddy, and Alexei Toropchenko who is putting up over two shots and hits per game of late. If any of the bigger names are available, definitely get in on those too. With one back to back per week as well, the Blues will likely be looking to split the workload of their goaltenders, meaning Ville Husso should see up to three starts per week, while Jordan Binnington should see one-to-two starts per week.

Note that Nikko Mikkola may be one of the better options on defence for peripherals, but he's been cycled out of the lineup of late, so he's an extremely risky option to burn one of your limited adds on.

Second on the list here are the Calgary Flames, who have one less game on the schedule than the Blues, but they have an extremely easy schedule playing only Dallas and Vegas who are even possibilities to make it into the playoffs. The Flames have been one of the best teams, if not the best, for the last number of weeks.

Again, depending on league size, relevant players from the Flames that might be on your waiver wire include: Dillon Dube, Erik Gudbranson, and Calle Jarnkrok who was surprisingly pointless in his first six games after joining the Flames. On the positive side for Jarnkrok, the points are starting to flow, and he is getting good looks, playing with decent linemates, and continues to shoot and win faceoffs with regularity. 

One other note for the Blues and the Flames, is that they don't play on Sunday April 10th, meaning if you need to cycle them out at the end of the week in a desperation move, you have already milked the games out of those players and you can add an extra one with a swap. The Flames actually have the leg up there, not playing on any of the next three Sundays.

If the biggest thing you need is to be able to fit in players to your lineups, then adding a few players playing on light days is key. The Winnipeg Jets have with six of their 10 games over the next 2.5 weeks coming on light days. They also play seven games in the next 10 days, and at that point you would probably cycle them out, because the last week in the period we're looking at they only play three games against some stiff competition: Rangers, Hurricanes, and Avalanche. Worth looking into a few peripherals stat stuffers they have on defence, as well as Adam Lowry and Paul Stastny who are seeing an improvement in deployment since Andrew Copp was traded.

Teams to avoid:

There are five teams with only eight games over the next 2.5 weeks: New York Rangers, Columbus Blue Jackets, Vegas Golden Knights, Edmonton Oilers, and the Los Angeles Kings. Of the set, the Rangers have the fewest light-day games, playing seven of their eight on heavier days where it may be tougher to fit them into your lineup anyways. I have added K'Andre Miller lately in a couple of leagues as he has been stacking the peripheral categories. Every second game he's notching four Hits, and there are a decent number of blocks and shots too. The offensive flair is there, but as a 22-year-old in only his second season, he hasn't put it all together well enough for the points to come regularly. 

Meanwhile, the Oilers not only don't play much, they have the toughest schedule over the next few weeks, as their opponents have an average points percentage of over 60%. Their goalies were droppable mid-season, but they're practically toxic at this point. There are only the top handful of players that you want to own on the Oilers at the moment, and anyone else can be dumped. Depending on your desperation level, I would even consider tossing Jesse Puljujarvi, Zach Hyman, and Evan Bouchard in one-year leagues.

Columbus is also a tough own when you're looking ahead, as they only have two games in the next calendar week – granted their next three games are all against teams below them in the Eastern Conference standings. In fact, over their next eight games they only play two games against teams that are even up on the playoff bubble (LA & Edmonton), while the rest are non-playoff teams. It's possible that there is some quality there, and the Blue Jackets have been scoring in bunches of late, but they are an inconsistent team, and that's tough to bank on in smaller sample sizes.

How to optimize game volume:

If you're just looking to game the system and work through how to get the most man games with the least amount of adds, then there are a few options here depending on how much wiggle room you have to work with. Looking at the next few days, there is one interesting schedule quirk with the only game on Monday the 11^th coming between the Montreal Canadiens and the Winnipeg Jets. Between now and the end of that game, the Jets will have played four times, while no other team plays more than three. That means they're the initial team to scour your waiver wire for (oh and look at that it all fits into what we touched on above with them).

From the 11^th to the end of the 2.5 weeks there isn't one team that further stands out above the rest, but there are a number of teams that play four times between the 12^th and the 19^th. Now, if you have the flexibility of a large number of adds, there's another quirk you can take advantage of, but if you need to grab a team on the 12^th and sit on that player, the Minnesota Wild are likely your best option. Let me run through why.

The Wild are the only team that plays a back-to-back on the 21^st and 22^nd, they also are tied for the highest number of games between the 12^th and the 19^th. What that means is that between the 12^th and the 22^nd they play seven times while no other team plays more than six. However, you can milk eight games out of the schedule if you make two extra adds, using a player from one of the 10 teams that play five times between the 12^th and the 19^th, cycling out for one of the eight teams that play on the 20^th, and then flipping for a Wild player to get both games of the back-to-back heading into the weekend. From there if you have another add, there are a few other teams playing back-to-backs over the weekend if you have extra adds, and if not you still have one more game from the Wild to see you out.

All that to say, it's worth paying attention to the schedule, and that the Frozen Tools schedule planner is a ridiculously useful tool, and that there are a few quirks to look into between now and the end of the year where you can make up some extra games.

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Houdini's muse: Mitch Marner 🪄 pic.twitter.com/dJmW39u0Fe

— Toronto Maple Leafs (@MapleLeafs) April 6, 2022

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Find me on Twitter @alexdmaclean if you have any fantasy hockey questions or comments.

Cheers!