Happy Friday (and happy long weekend to the Canadian crowd)! I don't get to say that often here, but this week I'm covering for Ian today while he slacks off gets some well-deserved down time with the family.

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It sounds as though a retirement announcement from David Krejci is imminent. Not that it is surprising, but it means that Pavel Zacha and Charlie Coyle are likely going to be the top-two centres for the Bruins next season, while Trent Frederic then becomes the swing man, either pushing James van Reimsdyk down the depth chart on the left side, or Morgan Geekie down to the fourth line centre role.

Krejci set to hang up the skates after 16 years (via @zander_manning_) https://t.co/gr5NcUPi1d

— Causeway Crowd (@Causeway_Crowd) August 3, 2023

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Our team-by-team offseason fantasy grade breakdowns are going to be starting August 8^th this year, with one per day in Alphabetical order until we get to the first week of September. Just a little something to hold you over until training camp starts in the middle of September.

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I've finally had some time to take a real look at the schedule, and sort through anything that is interesting to me as a fantasy hockey GM, especially for my H2H leagues, where the schedule fluctuations in small sample sizes can really make a difference. You can run the FrozenTools Schedule Planner report on your own any time if there is something specific you want to look into. I use it more than I care to admit.

If you're in a H2H league and not checking out which teams play the most in your playoff weeks, then you're already putting yourself at a disadvantage. I have come out with upsets as the weaker team time and time again because of the help of a bunch of extra man-games at the right time. To offset this though, it does put your team at a disadvantage during the season if you're getting less games here and there because they're more focused towards the end of the year. Draft as you normally would, take the best players, but then in-season, really pay attention to teams when you're looking at trades and add/drop changes.

I'll try to walk through the season schedule in something close to chronological order here.

To kick off the year, often I'll spend my last draft pick or two on players that I know are going to be streamers, so last season when SJ and NSH had a few games over in Europe before the rest of the NHL started, I added a few of them to get a head-start. This year, the Europe games are in November, so there aren't one or two teams that really start the season off with a bang that you can focus on.

The Ducks and the Isles are on the flip side, where you want to avoid them early on. The season opens on October 10^th, but both teams sit idle all the way to October 14^th, where they open their seasons on a busy Saturday where they won't necessarily be in your lineups anyways. The Ducks at least also play the next day, but the Isles don't play game number two until the 17^th. Chicago meanwhile (the heaviest opening schedule) has already played game four by the 16^th – not that there are a lot of streaming options there.

Arizona and Washington also start late, only playing one game the opening week, on a very light Friday.

Getting into November, it will be worth noting that the Wild, Red Wings, Maple Leafs, and Sens will have some pockets of inactivity around their Global Series games from Nov 16-19 (and they might be a little jet-lagged once they're back). The Sens are especially bad there, following up that Global Series week of two games, with only one game the week of Nov 20-26. The week prior, it's worth avoiding the Rangers, as they only have one game the entire week.

As usual, the Thursday of American Thanksgiving has no games scheduled, but strangely the Tuesday right before it also has no games. It's going to have to be a stacked week where you rely on your stars and your bench sees little action.

With the way the schedule falls around Christmas on a weekend, there are enough games on either side that they can be split into two normal sized weeks, as opposed to some years where the Christmas break causes an extra-long week to make up for the disparity. During the period from Christmas to New Years, most teams have three games, but the Canucks only get one.

Around All-Star Weekend (fantasy week from Jan 29 to Feb 11), there are three teams that play four games: Colorado, Vancouver, and Washington, with Colorado and Vancouver playing all four of their games on the road – maybe a good stretch to avoid their goalies.

The only five-game week that any team has this year comes in mid-March, where the Rangers make up for their light November schedule with a loaded seven-day slate against five of last year's top-nine teams from the East. Great for volume, probably not so great for the goalie percentages.

Now, we get to the fun part, the H2H playoff weeks. Most leagues this year will run playoffs over the three+ weeks starting on March 25^th (we'll call that option #2 below), with the finals then getting the last 1.5 weeks of the season. I do have one league though where we stick to knocking off the end of the schedule so we don't have to deal with players getting rested, so in that league we will start a week earlier on March 18^th, (we'll call that option #1).

Best teams:

Option #1 – Edmonton, Ottawa, Washington (11 games)

Option #2 – Edmonton (13 games)

Worst teams:

Option #1 – Arizona, Boston, Calgary, Chicago, Dallas, Detroit, Minnesota, Vancouver, Vegas (nine games)

Option #2 – Boston, Buffalo, Carolina, Dallas, New Jersey, Philadelphia (10 games)

What to take away from this, is do whatever you can to draft Connor McDavid or Leon Draisaitl, and then try to trade for the rest of their top players once you get into the middle of the season. They are the key to winning in the playoffs this year.

For the best teams during these periods to target for off-night schedules, here they are lined up by week:

March 18^th – All four teams have four total games: Washington with four off-night games, Seattle with three, and Carolina & Toronto each with two.

March 25^th – Only Vancouver and Buffalo have decent off-night schedules here, so this is likely a week where the bench doesn't matter as much and will be an even smaller overall sample size, if you're using schedule option #2 and have bye weeks, really try to win one this year.

April 1^st – There are a ton of off-night games this week, with all of the following having decent schedules for it with at least two off-night games: COL/EDM/LA/NJ/STL/TB/WSH. Specifically though, the Rangers are noteworthy here as they have four games, all of which are on off-nights, making them a perfect streamer option. Seattle also has all of their games on off-nights this week, but they only play three times.

April 8^th – When you're at this point in the season the only players that aren't droppable are the automatic keeper locks. Even bubble keeper level players are droppable if they don't play enough games or have gone cold. Calgary, Edmonton, Seattle, Toronto, and Vegas each play six games this week (the minimum is four), and they all have a few games sprinkled onto off-nights. You're dancing with karma trying to plan this far ahead sometimes, but these are the teams that will really give you an edge in the final 1.5 weeks. I would expect a few games of rest for the stars on Edmonton, Toronto, and Vegas, as they should have a playoff spot locked up by this point – Seattle and Calgary are less certain. Beware the stars on those "lock" teams, but it could mean the depth players that don't sit play a greater role. Just something else to think about.

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If you want to read more on the B2B schedules, and light days vs heavy, then you'll have to pick up the Guide where Andrew Santillo has all of that covered:

In case you missed the big news last night…

Dobber's 18th annual #FantasyHockey Guide PDF and Draft List spreadsheet is *NOW* available!!
🔥🔥🔥🔥
The first Guide of 2023, the best Guide of 2023.

Don't get left behind.https://t.co/UZBx5JDNQ0
🍺 pic.twitter.com/KIo0XAbCeX

— Dobber (@DobberHockey) July 26, 2023

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See you next Wednesday! In the meantime, you can find me on Twitter (I will continue to call it that) @alexdmaclean if you have any fantasy hockey questions or comments.