Fantasy Hockey Schedule Week 12: Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!  There are only games until Friday this week.  The only team to avoid dressing is the Columbus Blue Jackets as they only play once, while every other team plays two or three times.

Concussions continue to mount up on the league's best players, as leading scorer Claude Giroux and leading goal-scorer Milan Michalek are both out indefinitely with concussion symptoms.  The Philadelphia Flyers announced that Chris Pronger is out for the season and playoffs.  At his age, I bet he will likely consider retirement.  Let's hope this run of concussions is over.

Games to be played in week 12:

	GP	MON	TUE	WED	THU	FRI
ANAHEIM	2	@DAL			@LA
BOSTON	2	MON				FLA
BUFFALO	2		@OTT		@TOR
CALGARY	3		MIN		DET	@VAN
CAROLINA	2			PHO		OTT
CHICAGO	2		@PIT	MON
COLORADO	3	PHI		STL		TB
COLUMBUS	1				@NAS
DALLAS	3	ANA		PHI		NAS
DETROIT	3	@EDM		@VAN	@CGY
EDMONTON	2	DET			MIN
FLORIDA	3		PHO		@OTT	@BOS
LOS ANGELES	3	@TOR			ANA	@SJ
MINNESOTA	3	@VAN	@CGY		@EDM
MONTREAL	3	@BOS		@CHI	@WPG
NASHVILLE	3		@WAS		CBJ	@DAL
NEW JERSEY	2		NYR			WAS
NY ISLANDERS	3		@WPG		@NYR	TOR
NY RANGERS	3		@NJ		NYI	PHI
OTTAWA	3		BUF		FLA	@CAR
PHILADELPHIA	3	@COL		@DAL		@NYR
PHOENIX	3		@FLA	@CAR		STL
PITTSBURGH	2		CHI			@WPG
SAN JOSE	2			TB		LA
ST. LOUIS	2			@COL		@PHO
TAMPA BAY	2			@SJ		@COL
TORONTO	3	LA			BUF	@NYI
VANCOUVER	3	MIN		DET		CGY
WASHINGTON	2		NAS			@NJ
WINNIPEG	3		NYI		MON	PIT

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 until December 16, 2011):

HOME: Boston (11-6-1), Carolina (6-9-2), Colorado (8-9-0), Dallas (9-4-1), Edmonton (9-5-2), New Jersey (6-5-1), San Jose (9-6-1), Vancouver (8-4-1) and Winnipeg (10-5-0)

AWAY: Anaheim (2-7-4), Buffalo (8-3-0), Columbus (3-9-2), Detroit (7-8-0), Minnesota (10-4-2), Montreal (8-6-1), Philadelphia (12-3-1), St. Louis (6-6-2) and Tampa Bay (5-11-2) 

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 but will end on Friday this week.

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

Here are the teams that play on Friday (December 22, 2011):

FRIDAY: Boston, Calgary, Carolina, Colorado, Dallas, Florida, Los Angeles, Nashville, New Jersey, New York I, New York R, Ottawa, Philadelphia, Phoenix, Pittsburgh, San Jose, St. Louis, Tampa Bay, Toronto, Vancouver, Washington and Winnipeg

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:

BACK-TO-BACK: Calgary, Chicago, Detroit, Florida, Minnesota, Montreal, Nashville, New York I, New York R, Ottawa, Phoenix, Toronto and Winnipeg

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

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 over their last 10 games up until December 16, 2011:

TOP FIVE: Philadelphia (9-1-0), St. Louis (8-1-1), Minnesota (7-2-1), Vancouver (7-2-1) and Boston (7-2-1)

BOTTOM FIVE: Carolina (2-7-1), Tampa Bay (3-7-0), Anaheim (3-6-1), Los Angeles (3-6-1) and Edmonton (3-6-1) 

Fantasy hockey is all about offense, and what better place to generate offense than the power play? Here are the top five power play teams up until December 16, 2011:

Vancouver Canucks: 25.4 percent
Colorado Avalanche: 22.1 percent
Nashville Predators: 21.5 percent
Detroit Red Wings: 21.3 percent
Toronto Maple Leafs: 21.1 percent

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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].