Welcome back to The Oil Rig‘s weekly fantasy update! We continue aiming to bring you the information you need to show up your friends (or enemies) and get bragging rights by winning your league.
Each week we provide a schedule breakdown showing which teams to stream players from, who is hot and who is cold, some sleeper picks with low owned percentages to keep an eye on, and some Edmonton Oilers fantasy hockey updates.
Keep checking back for a new update each week.
NHL weekly schedule
Games per day from December 30th to January 5th
Week 13 has games being played every day of the week but is very heavy on the typical Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday nights. Your best opportunities to maximize man games will be Monday, Friday, and Sunday.
Try to map out your starting roster for the week with an extra focus on players who won’t make your starting lineup on Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday. If these players are replaceable, consider replacing them via free agency with players whose teams play on the previously mentioned off-nights. The difference in points or stat categories by the end of the week might be the margin of victory you need in weekly head-to-head formats.
| Monday | Tuesday | Wednesday | Thursday | Friday | Saturday | Sunday |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 3 | 13 | 1 | 12 | 5 | 12 | 5 |
Keep these resources at the top of your season-long tool list. Use them to guide your transactions. These become more valuable as the season goes on and teams establish themselves in overall power rankings.
Daily Faceoff provides a schedule table with each team’s games over the upcoming fantasy week for easy comparison between teams focusing on back-to-backs and off-day games.
Left Wing Lock goes deeper to look at strength of schedule so you can see which teams have easy games coming up and could be focused on for your streaming options.
Teams playing twice this week:
- Los Angeles Kings
- Ottawa Senators
Teams playing four times this week:
- Anaheim Ducks
- Boston Bruins
- Carolina Hurricanes
- Nashville Predators
- New York Rangers
- Toronto Maple Leafs
- Utah Hockey Club
- Winnipeg Jets
Off-night tracking
As I touched on in the weekly schedule, we are going to have overflowing rosters on Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday. Its a great time to plan ahead for correlating add/drops for players who won’t play more than once for you over the course of Week 13. Look to replace them with some players from the following teams.
| Team | Off-night games |
|---|---|
| Chicago Blackhawks | 2 (Friday, Sunday) |
| Florida Panthers | 2 (Monday, Friday) |
| Nashville Predators | 2 (Monday, Friday) |
| Florida Panthers | 2 (Monday, Friday) |
| New York Rangers | 2 (Monday, Sunday) |
Back-to-back tracking
This week’s schedule is essentially built around New Years Day where only one game will be played. Shout out to the Devils and Kings, we’ll be watching you guys fly around. Because of the number of days remaining in the week after New Years Day, we will get most of our back to back scenarios before and after a busy Saturday schedule.
| Team | Back-to-back games |
|---|---|
| Anaheim Ducks | Thursday, Friday |
| Boston Bruins | Saturday, Sunday |
| Carolina Hurricanes | Saturday, Sunday |
| Edmonton Oilers | Friday, Saturday |
| Florida Panthers | Thursday, Friday |
| Montreal Canadiens | Friday, Saturday |
| Nashville Predators | Monday, Tuesday / Friday, Saturday |
| New Jersey Devils | Tuesday, Wednesday |
| New York Rangers | Saturday, Sunday |
| Ottawa Senators | Thursday, Friday |
| St. Louis Blues | Friday, Saturday |
| Tampa Bay Lightning | Saturday, Sunday |
| Toronto Maple Leafs | Saturday, Sunday |
| Vancouver Canucks | Thursday, Friday |
| Winnipeg Jets | Monday, Tuesday |
Strength of schedule
Easy schedules
| Team | Opponents |
|---|---|
| St Louis Blues | Chicago Blackhawks, Ottawa Senators, Columbus Blue Jackets |
| Vancouver Canucks | Calgary Flames, Seattle Kraken, Nashville Predators |
| Vegas Golden Knights | Montreal Canadiens, Philadelphia Flyers, Buffalo Sabres |
Difficult schedules
| Team | Opponents |
|---|---|
| Anaheim Ducks | New Jersey Devils, Winnipeg Jets, Edmonton Oilers, Tampa Bay Lightning |
| Buffalo Sabres | Dallas Stars, Colorado Avalanche, Vegas Golden Knights |
Hottest teams
Last 10 games played
- Vegas Golden Knights 9–1–0
- Colorado Avalanche 8-2-0
- Winnipeg Jets 7–2–1
- Edmonton Oilers 7–2–1
- Ottawa Senators 7–3–0
Coldest teams
Last 10 games played
- San Jose Sharks 1–8–1
- New York Rangers 2–8–0
- Buffalo Sabres 3–6–1
- Columbus Blue Jackets 3–4–3
- Vancouver Canucks 3–3–4
Fantasy hockey team of the week
The fantasy team of the week highlights the top player at each position from the previous week. Scoring follows Yahoo’s default point settings and categories.
Left wing
Dmitry Voronkov – 49.90 FPTS
Voronkov floats under the radar in Columbus but plays a large role as the team’s LW1 and PP1 LW. His chemistry with Sean Monahan and Kirill Marchenko has been impressive to watch develop. He scored 4G and added 1A over the last week, three of those points came on the PP. His scoreboard appearances were accompanied by 11SOG and a +2 rating.
Centre
Mark Scheifele – 49.4 FPTS
It was an extremely efficient week for Scheifele, who scored 4G on only 6SOG to go along with his 2A and +5 rating. The veteran center highlighted his week with a hat-trick against he Toronto Maple Leafs. He has already exceeded his season long projection and averages over a point per game.
Right wing
Kirill Marchenko – 59.60 FPTS
Marchenko has been another big reason for the Blue Jackets’ offensive burst of late. He tallied 2G, 4A, +4 rating, 11SOG and 2HIT during the past week. Marchenko plays a key offensive role for the Blue Jackets on their top line and the point on their PP1 unit. Look for his offensive upside to continue throughout 2024-25 as he becomes a household name for the Blue Jackets.
Defence
Zach Werenski – 59.3 FPTS
The Blue Jackets have been engaged in high scoring games over their past two weeks. Werenski has been the key setup man during the last week registering 7A, four of which came on the PP. During that span he totaled 17SOG, 6BLK and a +1 rating. Werenski trails only Cale Makar in fantasy points this season.
Goalie
Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen – 46.2 FPTS
The Sabres broke their league-worst losing streak and exploded for some offense in front of the netminder referred to as UPL. The Sabres won all 3 games they played, and allowed two goals against for fewer in each game. UPL earned a 35SV victory against the Blues to cap off an impressive week.
Banger league player of the week
Dylan Holloway- 45.8 FPTS
Former Oilers draft pick Dylan Holloway has continued to flourish in St. Louis where he as seen additional ice time and opportunity to succeed. His aggressive play style turned over a few key pucks over the past week where he scored 3G, 2A with 12SOG, 8 HIT and a +4 rating. Holloway makes a great trade target going forward while playing a LW2 and PP1 role with the Blues.
Streamers of the week
It’s basically expected that the league’s top players will be the ones you want on your roster week-in, week-out. But those players aren’t likely to be available for you to pick up. Here’s some players who are hot with low ownership percentages that you should consider picking up for the week.
Jake Evans (C) – Montreal Canadiens – 5% Rostered
Evans has scored a goal in five straight games for the Montreal Canadiens who are eager to find offensive contributions from depth players. Evans centers the Canadiens fourth line and does not currently appear on the power play. Consider him a hot-hand worth adding in leagues where SHP are factored. He has two SHP over that five-game stretch.
Dmitry Voronkov (LW) – Columbus Blue Jackets – 18% Rostered
The Blue Jackets are amongst the league leaders in G/GP over their past few games. The point production has been heavily centered around the teams top line and PP1 unit. Voronkov offers you an opportunity to add a key part of those groups for 3GP on the week. With games against Detroit and St Louis, we can expect two high scoring games to occur for the Blue Jackets.
Colton Parayko (D) – St Louis Blues –58% Rostered
Parayko has been on a heater offensively. Over his last 3GP he scored 1G and added 4A. His value is supported by his contributions in SOG, HIT and BLK. Over the same 3G period he contributed 6SOG, 6HIT and 2BLK. Since being joined by defensive partner Cam Fowler, Parayko has had an opportunity to contribute offensively, breaking from his defensive defenseman role kill penalties on the Blues PK1 unit.
Calvin Pickard (G) – Edmonton Oilers – 17% Rostered
The Edmonton Oilers have a great pair of matchups on back to back nights playing Anaheim and Seattle between Friday and Saturday. We can expect Pickard to get the start in one of those games where the Oilers will be heavily favored to win.
Fantasy hockey players to consider dropping
Not everyone is always rosterable. Sometimes, it makes sense to let someone go and pick up one the players above to get you more points this week. Here’s a recommendation of who has gone ice cold lately that it may be time to drop.
Mason Marchment (LW) – Dallas Stars – 46% Rostered
A puck to the face is a terrifying thought to imagine. Marchment was hit on Friday in a game against the Minnesota Wild and is being considered week to week. As a fringe player to be rostered, you can do well to replace Marchment’s production from your league waivers. He will likely still be there when he returns to the lineup.
