Fantasy Hockey Schedule Week 3: Full of Questions

As we start Week 3 of the NHL season there are plenty of questions that come to mind. 

Now that Sidney Crosby has been cleared for contact when will he dress for his first game?  Will David Legwand continue to score at a 2.33 point per game pace?  Legwand is on pace for a 191 point season, we know that will slow down.  Ales Hemsky injured his shoulder this week, how long will he be out this time?  How long till the Toronto Maple Leafs lose their first game? 

We should know most of these answers this week.

Here is some great information for helping you to decide who to dress for the upcoming fantasy hockey week.

Games to Be Played in Week 3

	GP	MON	TUE	WED	THU	FRI	SAT	SUN
EDMONTON	4	NAS	@CAL		MIN		NYR
FLORIDA	4	@TB	@WAS		BUF		NYI
PITTSBURGH	4	@WPG	@MIN		MON		NJ
TORONTO	4	COL		WPG	@BOS		@MON
WINNIPEG	4	PIT		@TOR	@OTT		CAR
ANAHEIM	3	@SJ				DAL		PHO
BOSTON	3		CAR		TOR		SJ
BUFFALO	3		@MON		@FLA		@TB
CALGARY	3		EDM		NYR		NAS
CAROLINA	3		@BOS			@STL	@WPG
CHICAGO	3		@PHO		@COL		COL
COLORADO	3	@TOR			CHI		@CHI
COLUMBUS	3		DAL			@DET	@OTT
DALLAS	3		@CBJ			@ANA	@LA
LOS ANGELES	3		STL		@PHO		DAL
MINNESOTA	3		PIT		@EDM		@VAN
MONTREAL	3		BUF		@PIT		TOR
NASHVILLE	3	@EDM			@VAN		@CAL
NY RANGERS	3		@VAN		@CAL		@EDM
OTTAWA	3		PHI		WPG		CBJ
PHILADELPHIA	3		@OTT		WAS		STL
PHOENIX	3		CHI		LA			@ANA
SAN JOSE	3	ANA				@NJ	@BOS
ST. LOUIS	3		@LA			CAR	@PHI
TAMPA BAY	3	FLA			NYI		BUF
VANCOUVER	3		NYR		NAS		MIN
WASHINGTON	3		FLA		@PHI		DET
DETROIT	2					CBJ	@WAS
NEW JERSEY	2					SJ	@PIT
NY ISLANDERS	2				@TB		@FLA

Home/Away Games This Week

When it comes to dressing your players for the upcoming week—especially your goalies—it is important to know which team is on a long road trip and which team is enjoying an extended period at home.

Listed below are the teams that play at least three home/away games this week or play all their games at home or on the road (home/road records up to October 15, 2011):

HOME: Boston (1-2-0), Calgary (0-1-0), Edmonton (1-0-0), Ottawa (1-1-0), Tampa Bay (0-0-0) and Vancouver (0-0-1)

AWAY: Buffalo (1-0-0), Carolina (1-1-1), Dallas (0-1-0), Nashville (2-0-0), NY Islanders (0-0-0) and NY Rangers (0-0-2)

Teams That Play on Sunday

If you participate in any type of head-to-head hockey pool, you are likely dressing a lineup for each scoring period, which usually ends on Sunday.

As the week comes to an end, and you find yourself in a close battle for those wins, you want as many players as possible playing for you.

Here are the teams that play on Sunday:

Anaheim and Phoenix

Teams That Play in Back-to-Back Games This Week

When you are deciding which goalie to dress you need to look at the NHL schedule to see if your goalie's team will play in a back-to-back game that week.

Most coaches will not dress the same goalie in back-to-back games, so that is something to consider when you are thinking about which goalie to dress. 

Here are the teams that play in back-to-back games this week:

Carolina, Columbus, Dallas, Detroit, Edmonton, Florida, New Jersey, Pittsburgh, San Jose, St. Louis, Toronto and Winnipeg

Top Five and Bottom Five Teams

Knowing which team is on a hot streak or cold streak will help in making your lineup decisions. 

For example you definitely want to dress a goalie from teams that are on a hot streak. Here are the top five and bottom five teams up to October 15, 2011:

TOP FIVE: Pittsburgh (3-0-2), Philadelphia (3-0-0), Washington (3-0-0), Detroit (3-0-0) and Toronto (2-0-0)

BOTTOM FIVE: Winnipeg (0-2-0), Columbus (0-3-1), NY Rangers (0-0-2), Ottawa (1-3-0) and Boston (1-3-0)

Top Five Power Plays

Fantasy hockey is all about offense and what better place to generate offense then the power play.  Here are the top five power plays up to October 15, 2011:

Ottawa 31.6%
Nashville 30.0%
Calgary 30.0%
San Jose 30.0%
Colorado 25.0%

Latest Significant Injuries

Staying on top of injuries is extremely important to the success and failure of your fantasy hockey team.  Not knowing who is injured could lead to dressing a player who won’t get you any fantasy points.  A player on injured reserved (IR) doesn’t have an exact timeline yet so dress with caution if you are going to put him in your lineup.  Here are the latest significant injuries taken from TSN.ca up to October 15, 2011:

David Krejci: Boston (day-to-day with abdominal injury)
Jochen Hecht: Buffalo (day-to-day with head injury)
Brendan Morrison: Calgary (on IR with knee injury)
Mikael Backlund: Calgary (out 6 weeks, from Oct 4, with broken finger)
Corey Crawford: Chicago (probable with a lower body injury)
Kristian Huselius: Columbus (out indefinitely after pectoral surgery)
Jared Boll: Columbus (out 6-8 weeks, from Oct 1, with broken thumb)
Jeff Carter: Columbus (questionable with illness)
Derick Brassard: Columbus (questionable with lower body injury)
Ryan Whitney: Edmonton (on IR as he rehabs ankle surgery from summer)
Sam Gagner: Edmonton (on IR with high ankle sprain)
Ales Hemsky: Edmonton (questionable due to shoulder injury)
Andrei Markov: Montreal (on IR with knee inflammation)
Chris Campoli: Montreal (out indefinitely with leg injury)
Mike Cammalleri: Montreal (out 1-2 weeks, from Oct 10, with lacerated leg)
Jaroslav Spacek: Montreal (out 2-3 weeks, from Oct 13, upper body injury)
Travis Zajac: New Jersey (out indefinitely after Achilles surgery)
Martin Brodeur: New Jersey (questionable due to shoulder injury)
Nino Niederreiter: NY Islanders (on IR with groin injury)
Rick DiPietro: NY Islanders (out indefinitely with concussion)
John Tavares: NY Islanders (probable due to cramping)
Marc Staal: NY Rangers (on IR with concussion)
Sidney Crosby: Pittsburgh (on IR with post-concussion syndrome)
Martin Havlat: San Jose (on IR after shoulder surgery)
Antero Niittymaki: San Jose (out 3 months, from Sept 19 after hip surgery)
Antti Niemi: San Jose (day-to-day after cyst surgery)
David Perron: St. Louis (on IR with post-concussion syndrome)
Andy McDonald: St. Louis (out indefinitely with head injury)
Mattias Ohlund: Tampa Bay (out indefinitely after knee surgery)
Nazem Kadri: Toronto (on IR with knee injury)
Tim Connolly: Toronto (on IR with upper body injury)
Mason Raymond: Vancouver (out indefinitely with fractured vertebrae)
Ryan Kesler: Vancouver (out indefinitely after off-season hip surgery)
Michal Neuvirth: Washington (doubtful with lower body injury)
Eric Fehr: Winnipeg (on IR after shoulder surgery)

The Top 10 Scoring Forwards

Most elite stars are consistent scorers, but there are several players who are very streaky so keep an eye on their stats so that you can dress them while they are on a hot streak.

Here are the top ten scorers at forward and defense from the past 14 days:

FORWARDS:

David Legwand: Nashville (3 GP 2 G 5 A)
Thomas Vanek: Buffalo (3 GP 3 G 3 A)
Jeff Skinner: Carolina (5 GP 2 G 4 A)
James Neal: Pittsburgh (5 GP 4 G 1 A)
Milan Michalek: Ottawa (4 GP 3 G 2 A)
Daniel Sedin: Vancouver (4 GP 2 G 3 A)
Henrik Sedin: Vancouver (4 GP 1 G 4 A)
Rick Nash: Columbus (4 GP 2 G 3 A)
Anze Kopitar: Los Angeles (3 GP 3 G 2 A)
Claude Giroux: Philadelphia (3 GP 3 G 2 A)

Top 10 Scoring Defensemen

Kris Letang: Pittsburgh (5 GP 1 G 5 A)
Erik Karlsson: Ottawa (4 GP 0 G 6 A)
Chris Pronger: Philadelphia (3 GP 1 G 3 A)
Ryan Suter: Nashville (3 GP 2 G 1 A)
Tim Gleason: Carolina (5 GP 0 G 3 A)
Dennis Wideman: Washington (3 GP 2 G 1 A)
Dion Phaneuf: Toronto (2 GP 1 G 2 A)
Sheldon Souray: Dallas (4 GP 0 G 3 A)
Andrej Meszaros: Philadelphia (3 GP 1 G 2 A)
Keith Yandle: Phoenix (3 GP 0 G 3 A)

HOT GOALTENDERS

Here are the top five goaltenders and bottom five goaltenders from the past 14 days:

HOT GOALTENDERS:

Ilya Bryzgalov: Philadelphia (3 GP 3 W 1 SO)
Marc-Andre Fleury: Pittsburgh (3 GP 3 W 0 SO)
Kari Lehtonen: Dallas (3 GP 3 W 0 SO)
Jimmy Howard: Detroit (2 GP 2 W 1 SO)
James Reimer: Toronto (2 GP 2 W 1 SO)

COLD GOALTENDERS

Steve Mason: Columbus (4 GP 3 L)
Tim Thomas: Boston (3 GP 2 L)
Carey Price: Montreal (3 GP 2 L)
Jaroslav Halak: St. Louis (3 GP 2 L)
Craig Anderson: Ottawa (4 GP 2 L)

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Aaron Brouwer is the co-creator of www.fantasyhockeycoach.com.  FHC is a free fantasy hockey service that developed a ranking system combining post-lockout statistics, current factors and our own hockey knowledge.  Brouwer writes about fantasy hockey on Bleacher Report. You can contact Coach Brouwer at [e-mail].