Hello and welcome back to Geek of the Week! I am back after a three-week hiatus where Eli Feldman had a great three-part series that I hope you all enjoyed.

In this article, I will be examining the fantasy playoff schedule and focusing on diamonds in the rough at the goalie position. Most of these goalies could be on the waiver wire in your league. I'll see if there are some backups worth rostering that could have some great matchups in the fantasy playoffs or some under-owned starters with nice upcoming matchups. I will be covering Week 22 and Week 23 in this Part 1 article. Next week will cover Week 24 and 25.

I will also be referring to my True Value Goalie Rankings and constructs. If you are unfamiliar with these (Quality Weeks, Really Bad Weeks, and Star Weeks), I utilize these to model a Goalie's True Value in head-to-head (H2H) category leagues. You can find a deep dive into this topic in a previous article here. In general, these point to a goalies’ consistency, and the actual value provided to fantasy managers in head-to-head category leagues.

Here is a quick breakdown of the criteria of the True Value Goalie constructs:

Please note, these constructs may slightly differ from the constructs represented in Frozen Tools.

Quality Week (QW) – When a goalie has performed above the weekly average in two out of three of the main goalie categories (Wins, SV%, GAA).

Star Week (SW) – When a goalie has ranked top 15 for the week in all three of the main goalie categories (Wins, SV%, GAA). OR if your goalie has had a quality week AND has also gotten a shutout (This assumes SO is a counted category).

Really Bad Week (RBW) – When a goalie has ranked below the top 30 goalies for the week in all three of the main goalie categories (Wins, SV%, GAA), and has not gotten a shutout.

You can find these rankings here, updated throughout the season.

Fantasy Playoffs

Most leagues have their fantasy playoffs within Week 22 and Week 25. There are many configurations of dates, so I will be covering all these weeks and referencing them as below:

Week 22 (March 17 – March 23)

Week 23 (March 24 – March 30)

Week 24 (March 31 – April 6)

Week 25 (April 7 – April 17)

Week 22

Spencer Knight is the newest member of the Chicago Blackhawks. This is a huge downgrade for him, especially in category leagues. There is just a much higher likelihood of him getting lit up on one of the worst teams in the league. Why am I mentioning him though? Well, Chicago's opponents in Week 22 are Seattle, Los Angeles, St. Louis, and Philadelphia. This is the fifth-lowest combined opponent Goals For per game this week. He'll likely get two or three of those starts. He's been up and down in Florida. I think Week 22 can be an up week for him and maybe even a Star Week. Petr Mrazek may also be worthy of a stream depending how the starts get distributed.

Speaking of Florida's former backup, Chris Driedger will likely take on the rest of the back-to-back starts for the Panthers. One of which is the last day of this fantasy week against the Penguins. I wouldn't have great faith in him, but if you need a Hail Mary on a Sunday, he may be your stream against Pittsburgh.

Scott Wedgewood will likely get a quality start opportunity on a back-to-back against the Ottawa Senators on the Wednesday of this week. He has yet to get a quality week on the Avalanche, but this is what ZeroG is about. Colorado should be nicely favoured to win against Ottawa and I'd be happy to go for a quality start here, knowing there are four more days in this fantasy week to evaluate after.

Jordan Binnington and Juuse Saros have both disappointed this season. If they are on your waiver-wire, they both may be worth picking up, with great matchups this week. St. Louis' four opponents (Nashville twice, Vancouver, and Chicago) have the lowest combined Goals for per game, while Nashville's opponents (St. Louis twice, Anaheim, Toronto) are second in that regard. Maybe Joel Hofer also gets the tough Toronto start at the beginning of a back-to-back here, further improving Binnington's value for this week.

Week 23

Elvis Merzlikins has had an up and down season, but he has six Quality Weeks in the last six fantasy weeks! Columbus is on a surprising playoff push. While Week 22 looks tough for Columbus and Merzlikins, Week 23 has two potential great matchups for his starts. He will likely get the New York Islanders on the Monday, and Vancouver on the Friday, before ceding a start on the back-to-back Saturday. Vancouver is 31st in Goals Scored per 60, while the Islanders are in the bottom half of the league. I'd be happy to grab Merzlikins for this stretch if he's available.

Ilya Samsonov has been respectable in a timeshare 1B role this season, ranking 17th in the True Value Goalie Rankings. He is coming off of a pretty bad stretch lately, but did pick up three straight Quality Weeks prior to the latest fantasy week. With Vegas opting to alternate starts, he looks to be guaranteed at least one start in Week 23, likely against the Chicago Blackhawks. This is a juicy matchup that anyone should be happy to stream or start Samsonov for.

Karel Vejmelka is surprisingly 19th in the True Value Goalie Rankings this year so far. He's on a hot stretch earning the starting role for now in Utah. Week 22 and Week 23 don't provide great matchups for Utah, but Vejmelka may be one of the few starters available in your league. He also only has two Really Bad Weeks on the season. Utah is in the playoff hunt and may be able to have some nice upsets against good teams. I'd be happy rolling into the playoffs with Vejmelka on my team.

Come back next Sunday for Part 2, where I'll dive into Week 24, which may be the finals for some of you and the semi-finals for others, and Week 25, the last fantasy week of the season.

Hope you enjoyed this week’s breakdown!

Follow me on Twitter/X @fantasycheddar for more fantasy hockey advice and updates throughout the season.