Week 2: Six teams play four, Anaheim and Los Angeles play two
Vegas, Florida, Minnesota, Buffalo, New Jersey and Ottawa get four games. Anaheim and LA get two. Streams, goalie starts and the injuries that move rosters.
The schedule
Six teams play four games this week against a league average of 3.1: Buffalo, Florida, Minnesota, Vegas, New Jersey and Ottawa. That is the whole lineup-building exercise. Jack Eichel (ranked #5) gets four games on Vegas's top line with Ivan Barbashev and Mark Stone, with 12 points in his first five games already behind him. Kirill Kaprizov (#9), both Tkachuks in Florida, Tim Stutzle (#26), Jack Hughes (#27), Tage Thompson (#28) and Matt Boldy (#30) all get four.
Anaheim and Los Angeles play two. That is the week where a four-game average skater and a two-game star converge, and only for this week: Adrian Kempe (#40) on the Kings' top line with Artemi Panarin (#49) is a better season-long asset than, say, Timo Meier, but across seven days with two games against four, the gap closes to nothing. Leo Carlsson (#74) and Beckett Sennecke (#79) are in the same two-game bind in Anaheim, and Cutter Gauthier (#50) is day-to-day on top of it, which could make it a one-game week.
Two Florida notes that matter for how you read their four games. Aleksander Barkov is on long-term IR, six to eight weeks, and Brad Marchand is out with a leg injury expected into late November. That is why Brady Tkachuk (#10) landed on a second line centered by Lars Eller with Sam Reinhart as of Daily Faceoff's October 9 update, and why Matthew Tkachuk (#15) is with Carter Verhaeghe and Sam Bennett. Both brothers are on the same first power-play unit with Bennett, Reinhart and Seth Jones.
The goalie starts
The top of the expected-start board is a three-way tie at about two: Carter Hart (VGK, #75), Linus Ullmark (OTT, #33) and Filip Gustavsson (MIN, #186). Only two of those are actually usable. Gustavsson is on IR after offseason hip surgery with a return reported only as around early November, and Jesper Wallstedt holds the Wild net until then. Hart started Vegas's first two games and went 2-1 with 65 saves on 73 shots through three, with Adin Hill drawing the October 4 start against Vancouver. Ullmark opened as Ottawa's clear number one, took a precautionary absence after an October 5 collision in Boston and was back in net days later.
Behind them at about 1.8 starts: Ilya Sorokin (NYI, #92), who has started every Islanders game reported so far and took a 165:31 scoreless streak into the October 8 win over Chicago, and Andrei Vasilevskiy (TB, #18), settled as Tampa's starter with Dennis Hildeby behind him. Both come from three-game weeks, so you are paying a game of schedule for the certainty.
Buffalo's four games split three ways and that is a problem, not an opportunity. Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen (#202) started three of the first four and lost 4-0 to Dallas on October 9. Alex Lyon (#127) is on IR from a September 24 preseason injury, practicing as of the October 6 optional skate with no timetable per Lindy Ruff, and Colten Ellis has taken starts in the meantime. Ruff has said he intends to run a genuine time share among all three. Elsewhere: Jacob Markstrom (FLA, #163) shows 1.8 expected starts, but I could not verify anything about Florida's current crease split, so treat that number as the model's and not as reporting. Connor Hellebuyck (#167) is suspended by Winnipeg after refusing to report to camp amid a trade request and is not a fantasy asset right now. Karel Vejmelka (UTA, #88) at 1.7 is the cleanest three-game option: Opening Night shutout, three starts in the first four games, rookie Sebastian Cossa behind him.
Streams for the week
New Jersey's four games put two Devils at the top. Timo Meier (#94, week value 43.7) is on the second line with Nico Hischier and Luke Evangelista and, importantly, on the second power-play unit as of Daily Faceoff's October 8 page. Luke Evangelista (#98, 43.5) is the inverse bet: same line, but a game recap from the Islanders loss had him on PP1 with Hischier, Jack Hughes and Jesper Bratt, and Daily Faceoff's waiver column has him at 18:28 a night through three Devils games, up about 1:51 from Nashville. If you only take one, Evangelista has the special-teams edge; Meier has the shots and hits floor.
Sam Bennett (#100, 43.4) is the safest Florida add: second-line center between Verhaeghe and Matthew Tkachuk, first power-play unit, four games. Blake Coleman (#126, 40.7) gets four in Minnesota on the second line with Ryan Hartman and Maxim Shabanov, PP2 and the first penalty kill, which is a hits-plus-blocks week with some scoring upside. Ivan Barbashev (#150, 38.7) rides Eichel's wing for four but is on neither power-play unit, so take him for shots and hits only.
Two cautions on the stream list. Marek Alscher (#189, 40.7) is not in Florida's lineup: the October 12 Inside the Rink preview lists Forsling-Ekblad, Mikkola-Jones and Gudas-Kulikov, with Alscher unnamed. He is a call-up option, nothing more this week. Carter Verhaeghe (#162, 37.5) has bounced between line 1 and line 2 in the past few days and carries a day-to-day note that nothing I read explains. Ottawa's four-game bottom six gives you Shane Pinto (#156, 38.2), projected between Michael Amadio and Claude Giroux with PP2 and first penalty-kill work, and Giroux himself (#210, 35.2), whose position has flipped between second-line center and third-line wing across sources in the last week.
Adds for good
Evangelista is the one to own beyond this week if you believe the PP1 spot sticks; the skeptical read is that he has never driven much shot volume himself. Pick a side and hold it rather than streaming him in and out.
Among rising players, Vincent Trocheck (UTA, #66) is the quiet one: Daily Faceoff's October 9 page and NHL.com's projected lineups for October 3, 4 and 8 all have him on Utah's top line with Clayton Keller and Nick Schmaltz, though he is on the second power-play unit behind Cooley, Keller, Schmaltz, Guenther and Sergachev. Evgeni Malkin (PIT, #65) moved up to the first power-play unit on October 9 in Columbus with Sidney Crosby, Rickard Rakell, Ben Kindel and Erik Karlsson, a swap that cost Tommy Novak that spot and that the October 10 preview carried forward. Tomas Hertl (VGK, #63) is Vegas's third-line center but holds first-unit power-play work, and he has four games.
Dylan Cozens (OTT, #68) has four games but has already been bumped to the third line with Ridly Greig and Fabian Zetterlund after Eklund moved up. His PP1 net-front job was reported by Yahoo before the season and has not been freshly confirmed since the reshuffle, so add on the games, not on the power play.
Injuries that matter
The hard outs: Igor Shesterkin is done for the season after right knee surgery. Barkov is six to eight weeks on LTIR. Marchand is out with a leg injury targeted at November 21. Seth Jarvis is still working back from June labrum and rotator cuff surgery with an October 24 expected return. Connor Bedard has practiced fully but still awaits a doctor's visit for clearance, and the platform's November 7 date is not supported by that report. Treat his timeline as unresolved.
The short ones worth holding: Zach Hyman returned to practice October 9 after an absence expected to run about two weeks and has an expected return of October 13, but he has not been cleared. Cutter Gauthier left Saturday's game with an upper-body injury and carries the same October 13 expected return, which with Anaheim's two games could still mean one. Mathew Barzal is not yet skating but is not expected to need long. Kevin Fiala is at least three weeks out with a lower leg fracture and only just skating on his own. Travis Konecny is on IR with a lower-body injury, out at least three games, and the report says it is unclear when he returns despite a listed October 17 date.
Waiver note on Buffalo: Lyon's IR stint is the reason Colten Ellis has starts. Nobody in that crease is a confident start this week even with four games.
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