A tough decision can be made easier with these charts showing you the best five and worst five schedules for upcoming seven-day periods. Some of you used them last year but for the benefit of new readers here is a refresher. The number next to the team indicates the ‘multiplier’ to use on a player’s point-per-game pace to give you an idea how many points to expect for that week.

If you own any Rangers and are in a Sunday to Saturday league, then you are in luck.

We finally have our first five game week of the 2010-11 NHL season. In the Sunday to Saturday schedule, the Rangers face off vs Edm, @Pit, vs Bos, @Col, @Min. Definitely a weird stretch for the Gaborik-less Rangers, with two East teams squashed between Edmonton at MSG and a mini Western road trip. But who really cares, them playing five games should make you happy enough.

Coming off their 8-1 demolishing of the Blues earlier this week, the Blue Jackets only play twice between November 12^th and the 18^th.  I normally try to stay away from teams after they put up uncharacteristic numbers, so this gives you even more reason to stay away from Columbus.

The Bruins are a very good 6-1 on the road thus far in season, but are now 2-3-1 at home. While they do play four of their next seven in Boston, those games are against Ottawa, New Jersey, Florida and LA. Not really the hardest competition, especially with Ottawa bound to slow down and the Devils struggling like they are.

Speaking of bad home teams, the Sabres sit at 0-6-1 at HSBC and have six of their next eight there. With or without Ryan Miller, the screams for Lindy Ruff's firing might be getting louder in the near future as those six home games are against Washington, Vancouver, LA, Tampa Bay, Pittsburgh and Toronto. They also play in Washington and Montreal over the next three weeks.

Now on to some teams that are actually using home ice as an advantage; the Canucks, Blues and Kings are all undefeated in regulation in their respective buildings. Unfortunately, each team only has four home games over the next three weeks.

The current six game home-stand that the Wings are on looks nice on paper, but they still manage to make their way into the "Steer Clear" section for five of the next seven weekly schedules. Speaking of their slow schedule to begin the season….

A few weeks ago, I mentioned the major difference in games played between teams like Detroit and Chicago. Once again using the 14 day and 21 day outlook on Frozen Pool's Game Planner, I also took a look at what the rest of the League will look like after the next few weeks of play.

Looking at the standings as of Friday, the Blackhawks still sit atop the NHL with 18 games played, while Anaheim and Buffalo have both played 17 games. On the flip side, the Panthers and Bruins have only played 13 games thus far.

Moving down the road two weeks to November 25, there are still some pretty big discrepancies in team games played. Chicago still has the most games played at 24, with Anaheim, Buffalo, NY Rangers, Philadelphia and Pittsburgh all square at 23 games played. With 20 games played at that point are Boston, Columbus, Dallas, Detroit, Florida, Minnesota, Nashville, San Jose, St. Louis and Toronto.  You might want to start looking into buying low on some of the players who are on these latter teams.

Looking ahead  three weeks to December 2, we are back to a five game differential between the Wings and Chicago. The Hawks, Ducks and Penguins will have all played 27 games by that point, while the Red Wings are still only at 22 games played. Also in the mix for players to buy low on are guys from the Islanders, Canucks and Blue Jackets; they will have only played 23 games by December 2.

I think this kind of information is extremely important when making trades in fantasy hockey, especially if your competition is blind to it. If on December 1 you trade your Patrick Sharp or Marian Hossa for a Datsyuk or Zetterberg, then you could be laughing the rest of the way.