We are nearly four weeks into the NHL season, and today's write-up covers skaters worth streaming and goalies worth adding. We will be reviewing which skaters have four-game weeks, which goalies have had a good share of the starts, and finish by covering which skaters are getting meaningful power play time. Grab a drink or a snack and get the information you need for the upcoming fantasy hockey week.

Do this first

• Goalies: Spencer Knight and Darcy Kuemper are starting two of every three games and are each on under half of ESPN rosters. Lukas Dostal has the same share, but Ville Husso started two of Anaheim’s last three.

• Add: Charlie Coyle, first unit in Columbus with 76 percent of the power-play time over the last three games.

• Four-game week: Matt Coronato and Morgan Frost in Calgary, with three of those games on light nights.

• Defence: Neal Pionk, first unit in Winnipeg with Josh Morrissey out, and four games next week.

• Watch: Pittsburgh’s power play now that Bryan Rust is on injured reserve.

This week’s question is about goalies: If a goalie has started most of his team’s games in October, how often does that turn into a fantasy starter’s season?

I went back through 10 seasons, 2016-17 to 2025-26, and read every goalie with a start at his team’s 9th, 14th and 21st games. That’s 720 goalie-seasons from 165 goalies. Here, a fantasy starter is a top-24 goalie in starts over the rest of the season, two per team in a 12-team league, and starts count with any team, so a traded goalie still counts.

A goalie’s early share of starts takes a while to mean something. The weight you can put on it is about 0.4 at the 9th game and 0.5 by the 14th. It reaches 0.6 by the 21st and grows slowly after that. That’s why those three games are the checkpoints.

The answer is the share of starts

The table is how often past goalies in each group finished top-24 in starts. At the 9th game, goalies with two of every three starts got there 70 percent of the time. By the 21st game it was 78 percent. The bigger side of a split is close to a coin flip. Under a third of the starts, it’s rare. That spread from 8 percent to 70 percent is why the share is an early October tell.

I also tested whether the reason a goalie is starting matters. Is he last season’s starter, did the starter leave, is the starter hurt, or did he win the job while the starter was healthy? Before running it, I set a bar: adding the reason had to make the predictions better in both halves of the history. It made them slightly better in one half and worse in the other. It failed. The share carries the signal on its own, because the reason didn’t add to it. The reason still matters for the story of each team. It goes on the card as a note, but it doesn’t move the number.

The goalie card

Figure 1: goalies with half or more of their team’s starts on under 60 percent of ESPN rosters, with the share of past goalies in the same spot who finished top-24 in starts

Knight has 7/9 starts for Chicago and is on 49 percent of rosters. Kuemper has 6 of 8 in Los Angeles at 48 percent, and Dostal 7 of 10 in Anaheim at 37 percent. All three were their team’s starter last season. Jet Greaves is in the same spot in Columbus with 5 of 8 starts.

The lighter bars are jobs that opened because another goalie is hurt or suspended. In Winnipeg, Stuart Skinner has 7 of 10 starts. Connor Hellebuyck has been suspended without pay since Sept. 16, after asking for a trade and not reporting to camp. The suspension is supposed to lift Friday, but he has to pass a physical to get back on the active roster. For TSN, Chris Johnston said Thursday, “I don’t think anyone expects to see him show up in Winnipeg.” But nothing is settled. Skinner’s number assumes he keeps starting, so that’s the line to watch.

Devon Levi has 7 of 10 in Edmonton. Last season’s starts leader there isn’t on an NHL roster, and Frederik Andersen is out with a knee injury and no timeline. Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen has 7 of 10 in Buffalo because Alex Lyon is still out after a setback, with no timeline either.

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John Gibson has 7 of 10 in Detroit but left Thursday’s game after two periods with an upper-body injury. The Red Wings listed him Friday as questionable for Saturday. Rotowire lists backup Daniil Tarasov as out too, which the team hasn’t confirmed. So that net is unsettled.

On the bigger side of a split, Yaroslav Askarov (14 percent rostered) and Arturs Silovs (18 percent) each have 7 of 11. Jake Allen has 6 of 10 in New Jersey at 23 percent, with Jacob Markstrom now in Florida. Kevin Lankinen has 7 of 12 in Vancouver at 7 percent. Pittsburgh plays only twice next week, so Silovs has fewer chances for usage.

Markstrom is off the card because he’s hurt. He’s out 10 to 14 days, per Florida coach Paul Maurice on Tuesday. Akira Schmid started Wednesday and Cooper Black made his NHL debut Thursday. In Ottawa, Linus Ullmark (93 percent rostered) is on injured reserve for 1-2 weeks.

Next week, Winnipeg, Edmonton, Los Angeles, Calgary and Ottawa play four games with a back-to-back. That’s where a backup start can come, so the second night is the one to check.

Who to add this week

Figure 2: who to add this week, with the history odds for each player’s spot

Five of the six steady starters were on last week’s list, and all five still have half or more of their team’s power-play time: Viktor Arvidsson, Kyle Palmieri, Jimmy Snuggerud, Tyler Bertuzzi and Luke Hughes. Palmieri has 91 percent of the Islanders’ power-play time over the last three games and is still on 6 percent of rosters.

Coyle is back on the list. He was a Week 1 add, but his extra ice time had faded by week two. Now he’s on Columbus’s top line by ice time at 21.4 minutes over the last three games, up from 18.1 last season, and on the first unit with 76 percent of the power-play time. He’s on 49 percent of rosters, and players in his spot became 12-team starters 67 percent of the time.

Coronato and Frost are the deep-league adds, both on Calgary’s first unit, Coronato at 63 percent of the power-play time and Frost at 66. Coronato is on 26 percent of rosters and Frost 6. Calgary plays four next week, and three of them are on light nights, Monday, Wednesday and Friday, which means less competition for a daily lineup spot. Zach Benson is back on the list from last week.

Pionk isn’t on the card, but he’s worth a line. He has 73 percent of Winnipeg’s power-play time over the last three games with Morrissey out week-to-week. He’s on 44 percent of rosters, and Winnipeg plays four. Players in his spot became 12-team starters 41 percent of the time.

Rickard Rakell is a Grab on the board too, but he’s off the card because he’s on 59 percent of rosters. He has 62 percent of Pittsburgh’s power-play time over the last three games. But Pittsburgh plays twice next week.

Who just moved on the power play

Figure 3: who moved onto or off the first unit, with how often moves like it held

Gavin McKenna moved onto Toronto’s first unit with John Tavares out week-to-week. McKenna has 68 percent of the power-play time over the last three games, up from 43, but plays on the fourth line by ice time at 11.5 minutes a night. Moves onto the first unit into a new role held 54 percent of the time, so it might stick, but the minutes are thin.

Alex Laferriere has 78 percent of Los Angeles’s power-play time over the last three games, up from 46, and the Kings play four. Kevin Fiala has been out since the preseason, so the card shades it as an injury-opened job. Carter Verhaeghe is still on Florida’s first unit, at 62 percent.

Pittsburgh’s moves need a caveat. The Penguins had 21 seconds of power play on Oct. 17 and 60 on Oct. 19, so almost all of their last-three-games sample is Thursday’s game, the first without Rust and Ben Kindel. Tommy Novak (23 percent rostered) and Ville Koivunen each played more than half of Thursday’s power-play time, with Koivunen in Kindel’s spot. Evgeni Malkin‘s share reads 44 percent. That comes from 81 seconds of power play over two games. On Thursday he had more than half. So, the movers card leaves Pittsburgh off this week, and it’s worth another week before reading anything into it.

Vasily Podkolzin dropped to the second unit in Edmonton, but that’s his usual role, and moves back to last season’s role held 81 percent of the time. Chris Kreider, last week’s deep-league pick, is at 32 percent in Montreal, down from 68. That one slipped.

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Injuries, and who benefits

• Pittsburgh, Rust, will be evaluated in six weeks (Daily Faceoff). Rakell holds his first-unit spot, and Novak and Koivunen got the time Thursday.

• Toronto, Tavares and Chris Tanev, week-to-week. McKenna moved onto the first unit. Morgan Rielly lost his first-unit role earlier this season and is at 24 percent.

• Winnipeg, Morrissey, week-to-week. Pionk has the first-unit time.

• San Jose, Alexander Wennberg, week-to-week. Wennberg was last week’s deep-league add.

• Carolina, Jordan Staal (one to two months) and Taylor Hall (week-to-week).

• Dallas, Esa Lindell, at least a week.

Season log

Week 3's steady starters held five of five, with Bertuzzi too early to grade. The biggest miss was Matvei Michkov. Last week he was the warning sign after dropping to the second unit, but he’s back on the first unit with 67 percent of the power-play time over the last three games. That call missed. Chandler Stephenson missed too, at 46 percent, though Seattle splits its power play close to evenly. Wennberg kept his power-play share but is now hurt, and Kreider has slipped.

Week 1's add list is at 8/12 as of Thursday. Week 2's column printed 7/12 for it, and last week’s printed six. Grades move as games come in.