Each week on Fridays, Caleb Desjardins writes about the upcoming fantasy week in his ‘Looking Ahead’ column. Be sure to check out his write-ups for week-to-week coverage on good/bad upcoming schedules, players to trade for/trade away, and a whole lot more.

Today’s Ramblings are going to be a type of look-ahead, only we’re going to look at the rest of the season from the holiday break onward. Which teams have good schedules? Which teams have tough schedules? Who has an easy head-to-head playoff schedule? Those are the kinds of things we are going to look at.

Scheduling data comes from the Frozen Tools Schedule Planner.

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For a lot more in-depth breakdowns of the second half of the fantasy season, be sure to pre-order the 2026 Dobber Midseason Guide! It will have second-half projections, trends, prospects to keep an eye on, and a whole lot more. Head on over to the Dobber Shop to pre-order a copy today.  

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Light Work for Anaheim and Ottawa

To start, the Anaheim Ducks have 45 games left in the season (no team has more than 47). The important part here is the Ducks have 21 games on ‘light’ days, using the cutoff of 7 total games in a day (less than half the league). Anaheim doesn’t have the most volume for total games remaining, but anyone looking to stream secondary options like Mikael Granlund or Olen Zellweger will have the chance to do so frequently because the Ducks have a lot of games on those light days.

On top of the light-day scheduling, the Ducks have one of the easiest schedules remaining by opponent points percentage. Not only are there going to be a lot of days where the Ducks’ depth options are stream-able, but a lot of games against teams in the bottom-half of the league on top of that. With the offensive upside their roster has, the Ducks are going to be one of the most important lineups for fantasy players in the second half.

While Ottawa only has 16 games on light days – third-most of any team remaining but far behind Anaheim’s 21 – another factor here is that they have 46 total games (tied for fourth-most) and 10 of those games are back-to-back situations (tied with several other teams for most in the league). Of all the teams with at least 10 B2Bs left, Ottawa is tied for the most total games remaining (46) and has the most games on light days (16).

Of note is what this means for Leevi Merilainen. Assuming he stays as Linus Ullmark‘s backup, it should give Merilainen at least 10 more starts this season, and perhaps more if Ullmark’s play isn’t up to the level Ottawa needs him. All those light-day games mean there could be some streaming value for guys like David Perron, Claude Giroux, and Ridly Greig.

Shark Attack

While San Jose doesn’t have close to the most games remaining (45), they do have 10 games on back-to-backs, so there are going to be two goalies with fantasy value in the second half for the Sharks.

Importantly for San Jose is that, according to the Schedule Planner, the teams remaining on San Jose’s schedule are giving up the most goals against per game, and they have one of the easiest schedules overall when looking at opponent points percentage. Maybe the Sharks still decide to trade some of their UFA veterans at the Trade Deadline, but if that is the case, guys like Collin Graf, Igor Chernyshov, Shakir Mukhamadullin, and Sam Dickinson could have some solid fantasy value down the stretch (Graf and Chernyshov have some fantasy value right now, to be honest). Either way, San Jose’s remaining games are a favourable stretch for them and that’s something to keep in mind when looking to make trades for a top option like Macklin Celebrini or streaming the depth options.

Unloading Leafs

Toronto has 46 games remaining on the schedule, which is a healthy amount, but 26 of those 46 games are on the road, only 13 of them are on light days (about league average), and their remaining opponents are tied for the fewest goals against per game this season. Overall, that isn’t a great schedule for fantasy managers hoping for a big second half from the likes of Auston Matthews and William Nylander. 

The Quick and the Dread

Different leagues will have different cut-off dates for head-to-head playoffs. With the Trade Deadline on March 6th, I will assume many leagues will have their H2H playoffs start on Monday, March 9th, so that’s the date we’re using for H2H playoffs.

From that date onward, the New York Rangers are tied with a slew of teams for 2nd-most games played with 20. What differentiates them from the rest are two things:

Tied for the most home games from March 9th to the end of the season with 12.

Most games on light days with 10 – no other team has more than eight.

Of New York’s final 20 games on the schedule, half of them are on back-to-backs. That is bad news for Igor Shesterkin fantasy owners, but it’s great news for people who want to jump in early on some Jonathan Quick streaming. The Rangers have used Quick in all their B2B games they’ve played this season but one, and that one time they didn’t was when Quick was injured. If the Rangers are in a playoff position or something, maybe they turn to Shesterkin for a couple of those B2Bs, but Quick should get a relatively heavy workload for a backup over the final six weeks of the season. Keep Quick in the back of your mind once we reach the Olympic break.

Wild Knight

From March 9th onward, there are nine teams with 18 games on the schedule, tied for the fewest in the league. What makes the Vegas Golden Knights and Minnesota Wild a special situation is they are tied for the fewest games on light days (2) in that span. In fact, only 1 of Minnesota’s final 14 games is on a light day with every game they play from March 16th through April 4th having at least nine games (and most days are 11 or more).

For the top fantasy options like Jack Eichel, Mitch Marner, Kirill Kaprizov, Matt Boldy, and Quinn Hughes, this doesn’t change much; those guys aren’t being left off weekly fantasy rosters outside of extreme situations. But for the secondary options like Shea Theodore (if he’s still not on the top PP unit), Ivan Barbashev, Marcus Johansson, Vladimir Tarasenko, and Brock Faber, that is more of an open question. They might be fine to hang onto for a while, but they won’t have much fantasy value over the final six weeks of the season, so they definitely aren’t players to run out and acquire for H2H playoffs, and are in fact players that fantasy managers should be looking to unload once we reach the Olympic break.

Their Schedule is the Pitts

Staying with that March 9th cutoff, the Pittsburgh Penguins have 19 games, which is well enough. The big problem is that their remaining opponents have the highest points percentage of all remaining schedules, including Colorado twice, Carolina twice, Washington twice, Florida twice, Dallas, and Vegas, among others. The Penguins have an absolutely brutal schedule down the stretch and while fantasy managers might want to hang onto names like Sidney Crosby and Bryan Rust, maybe gauge the trade market interest in a few weeks to see what they might fetch in return. At the very least, it’s not a good stretch of games to have any of their goalies on your fantasy roster.

Flaming Out

The last team we’ll talk about is the Calgary Flames. They have one more game in that final H2H stretch than Pittsburgh, but have a similarly difficult schedule – Colorado three times, Los Angeles twice, Dallas, Vegas, Tampa Bay, Florida, plus an extended Eastern trip including teams like the Islanders, Red Wings, and Capitals. They also have just two games in that span on a back-to-back, and if Dustin Wolf can keep him his steady play from the last couple of months, it may not mean much work for Devin Cooley later in the season.

Calgary has done good work over the last month or so to at least make the playoffs a potential reality. However, that final six weeks of the season is a brutal stretch of games in which their roster is really going to be tested, and there is also no telling what the lineup looks like after the Trade Deadline. Nazem Kadri would be a fantasy roster mainstay, and multi-cat options like Mackenzie Weegar and Rasmus Andersson as well, but any of those three might be traded by the Deadline, and if not, what remains on the Flames roster after the Deadline could downgrade them. Add that to a very difficult final quarter of the season, and fantasy managers may want to ride the Calgary hot streak as long as it lasts before bailing on them around the Olympic break.