With the new 84-game schedule released last week, we look at some of the more interesting Eastern Conference matchups with fantasy relevance:

Monday October 12, 2026: Florida Panthers at Buffalo Sabres

The first of many Monday games with an early start time. Why is this deserving of its own entry on important matchups? Because the NHL is increasing the number of afternoon Monday games this season for overseas viewership. Many fantasy leagues require setting your weekly lineup before puck drop on the first game on Monday. For fantasy managers, this means you might need to set your weekly lineups Sunday night or Monday morning to be safe. Alex Lyon had his best season in 2022-23 as a member of the Florida Panthers, posting a .914 save percentage and a 73.3% quality start rate. As a Sabre last year, he went 3-0 against Florida, with .961 save percentage and 1.67 GAA. Sam Reinhart seems to have an itchy trigger against his former team: He took 17 of his 166 total shots (10.2%) on Buffalo goalies last year. He did not have more than 11 shots against any other team.

Tuesday October 13, 2026: Buffalo Sabres at Montreal Canadiens

The next evening, the Sabres start a unique three-game road trip that takes them to Montreal, then to Toronto, and then back to Montreal for a Saturday night game on October 17. This is a rematch of the Atlantic Division final, a gruelling playoff series that was decided on an Alex Newhook overtime goal in game seven. This game also represents a tired opponent for Montreal, because the Sabres will play Florida in the game mentioned above on Monday October 12, and then fly to Montreal to play a rested Montreal team. In fact, the Canadiens have the most games (19) against an opponent playing in the second night of a back to back. Habs skaters get a slight advantage because they will have higher chances of going up against the opponent's backup goaltender more often than not.  If you need a goalie win in your matchup, it might be worth it to consider who is starting for Montreal in these 19 games, as wins might be easier to come by against a tired opponent.

Wednesday October 21, 2026: Florida Panthers at Ottawa Senators

This one is worth tuning into just to hear the 'boos' of Senators fans. With rumours spreading that many in the Sens locker room weren't too sad to see Brady Tkachuk leave, there is potential for some on ice fireworks as well. I could see Linus Ullmark taking a swipe at Tkachuk in the crease, after the Tkachuks' podcast critique of goalies being too soft and missing too many games.

Saturday November 28, 2026: Tampa Bay Lightning at Florida Panthers

If you are looking for PIM in your weekly matchup, you have come to the right place to pick up a streamer. This is one of four meetings this season where penalties will be handed out generously. December 26, February 16, and March 23 are the other dates in the 2026-27 season where you can positively skew your PIM category with a waiver pickup on one of these two teams. There is bad blood between them as evidenced by the last game they played on February 5^th, a 6-1 win by the Panthers. The game featured a total of 167 minutes of penalties dished out by the referees. The breakdown: the Lightning were assessed 91 penalty minutes, while the Panthers were served with 76. In their four-game season series, Tampa Bay accumulated 211 PIM vs 158 PIM for Florida. That accounts for 17.3% of Florida's total PIM on the season, and 17.5% of Tampa Bay's total season PIM. The animosity spilled over to the 4 Nations Face-Off game on February 15 between Team USA and Team Canada, where Matthew Tkachuk and Brandon Hagel dropped the gloves three seconds into the game. One under the radar potential waiver add for these matchups is J.J. Moser who had 39.1% (27 of 69) of his season's PIM against the Florida Panthers.

Saturday November 28, 2026: Toronto Maple Leafs at Pittsburgh Penguins

Here is another important matchup on the same day as the much anticipated penalty fest in Florida. GM Kyle Dubas hosts his former team in Pittsburgh. Dubas also landed cap guru Brandon Pridham, poaching him from the Leafs on July 15, 2026. Pridham joins assistant general manager Jason Spezza, who already followed Dubas to Pittsburgh. In terms of former players, Nick Robertson was acquired from the Maple Leafs for a fourth-round pick in 2028. He was drafted 53^rd overall in 2019. His goals scored has increased from 14 to 15 to 16 in the last three seasons in Toronto. Robertson will hope to increase his average time on ice (12:40) but it will be difficult with the glut of wingers Dubas has collected. This game also marks the second of back-to-back games for Pittsburgh. They have a league leading 15 sets of back-to-back games meaning we will see plenty of Arturs Silovs, Joel Blomqvist, and Sergei Murashov throughout the season. Five of every 28 Penguins games (17.8%) this upcoming season will be the second half of a back-to-back. Erik Karlsson with 8 points in 14 games, Evgeni Malkin with 7 points in 10 games, and Kris Letang 5 points in 13 games all had worse point per game production on zero days' rest (split stats from ESPN).

Saturday December 5, 2026: New Jersey Devils at Pittsburgh Penguins

The Devils' most recent signing – Anthony Mantha – returns to Pittsburgh where he enjoyed a productive 64-point season. We have yet to know definitively as to what his deployment will be in New Jersey, but there are impending signs of regression looming. Mantha has potted 60 goals on his last 280 shots. This is an extremely unsustainable scoring rate. Let's compare with how many goals other players have scored on their last 260 shots: Jack Eichel has 27 goals and Zach Werenski has 22 goals. That was easy to calculate because both Eichel and Werenski had exactly 260 shots last year. Admittedly, it is not the best comparison since Eichel is more of a passer, and Werenski is a defenseman, but you see the point: neither was anywhere close to Mantha's conversion rate. Mantha hasn't been higher than 12.8% on his shooting percentage in any season before this sudden uptick to 21.4% over his last three seasons dating back to 2023-24. Moreover, Mantha's linemates in Pittsburgh also had the magic touch as Mantha boasted his highest 5v5 shooting percentage of his career. Normally, Mantha is within the 1.7 to 2.5 range in terms of points per 60. Last year that surged to 3.1. To be fair, Mantha actually did have a string of 57 goals on 286 shots (shooting percentage of 19.9%) earlier in his career. It was back in 2013-14 when he led the QMJHL in scoring, registering 57 goals and 63 assists (120 points) in 57 games. Some of this regression could be offset if Mantha lands next to Jack Hughes on the top line and the top power play.

Monday March 15, 2027: Tampa Bay Lightning at Washington Capitals

Ovechkin's good friend and long time Washington defenseman John Carlson returns to Capital One Arena as a member of the rival Tampa Bay Lightning. Carlson's percentage of power play time has declined for the last four years: 76.0% to 71.9% to 68.7% to 52.3%, but he should see a nice rebound in Tampa where he could get what Darren Raddysh received last year: 74.4% of power play time. Carlson's shooting percentage (9.2%) was a bit high and that should come down, but his assist totals will almost definitely be higher feeding Nikita Kucherov on the lethal Tampa power play. Carlson spent three times as many seasons (16.5) with the Capitals than he did days (5.5) as a member of the Carolina Hurricanes.

Player usage data from Frozen Tools. Stats from nhl.com and ESPN.

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