The 2024-25 NHL schedule kicks off on October 4, 2024 with the Buffalo Sabres and New Jersey Devils facing off in the NHL Global Series in Prague, Czechia.
Also starting is the fantasy hockey calendar, with a long Week 1, as usual, spanning 10 days.
Veteran fantasy hockey managers know how important it is to consider the ins and outs of the detailed NHL schedule when drafting, trading, and making weekly pickups. If you’re new to this, allow us to give you a head start.
Off days in the NHL
A key thing to consider when it comes to the NHL schedule is off days. The schedule is weighted to feature more games on certain days. “Off days” refer to days when there are fewer games on the calendar than others. In the past, off days have been Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays, and Sundays, a trend that continues this season.
62% of NHL games will be played on just three days: Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday. This is a 2% decrease from last year. The remaining 38% will happen on Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays, and Sundays, the off days. This split is important to keep in mind up front, so you can mitigate against having to bench players on days when your whole roster is playing.
A roster that allows you to maximize the games that are being played will give you a higher overall man-game total for each week, which is a huge advantage.
Breaking down this trend further, there are some teams you should keep a specific eye on. Traditionally, the Ducks have led the league in off-day games. This trend continues, and even more so than last season. In 2023-24, the Ducks had 43 off day games, and this year that total is up one more to 44. The next highest team is the Blackhawks with 39, a sharp drop from the Ducks.
On the other side of the spectrum, the Bruins have just 20 games on off days, with the remaining 62 games on busy days. Close behind are the Blues with 22 games on off days.
| Off day games | Team(s) |
|---|---|
| 44 | ANA |
| 39 | CHI |
| 38 | COL, VGK |
| 37 | DAL |
| 36 | NJD, NYR, UTA, WPG, VAN |
| 35 | DET, LAK |
| 34 | PIT, TOR |
| 33 | MIN, CAR |
| 31 | WSH |
| 30 | BUF, EDM |
| 28 | NYI, NSH, FLA |
| 27 | CGY |
| 26 | MTL, SEA, TBL |
| 25 | CBJ, SJS, OTT, PHI |
| 22 | STL |
| 20 | BOS |
A few teams stand out in terms of off day games: The Hurricanes, Devils, Rangers, Jets, and Canucks. These teams will contend for division titles and have a high number of fantasy relevant players. When in doubt, lean towards the player from one of these teams because there’s a higher chance they’ll get into your lineup.
On the other side, additional caution should be used when drafting players from teams that are uncertain like the Kraken, Flames, and Blues. These teams are already not projected to do very well this season, and they get almost no boost from the schedule.
Rest advantage
Another important takeaway from the schedule is rest advantage. This looks at teams who are playing without rest (on the second half of a back-to-back) against a team with rest (did not play the night before). For this breakdown, rested games are ones where the team has at least one day of rest and their opponent has zero; tired games are ones where the team has zero days of rest and their opponent has at least one day of rest.
This year, there are some very interesting splits between teams.
The teams with the most rested games are the Ducks (16), Blue Jackets (15), and the Islanders (13). The teams with the fewest rested games are the Sabres (1), Panthers (4), and the Flyers/Bruins (5).
The teams with the most tired games are the Maple Leafs (12), and the Ducks/Kings/Predators/Rangers (11). The teams with the fewest tired games are the Bruins/Lightning (6), and the Stars/Devils (7).
Looking at overall advantage by taking the delta between rested games and tired games shows which teams are in the most favourable positions.
| Rest Advantage | Team(s) |
|---|---|
| 6 | CBJ |
| 5 | ANA, NYI, NJD |
| 4 | STL |
| 3 | MIN, VAN, VGK |
| 1 | LAK, CHI, WSH, WPG, TBL |
| 0 | UTA, OTT, DET, DAL |
| -1 | NSH, CAR, EDM, PIT, CGY, BOS |
| -2 | MTL, SJS |
| -3 | TOR, COL, SEA, PHI |
| -4 | NYR |
| -6 | FLA |
| -7 | BUF |
The teams that really stand out positively here are the Devils, Islanders, and Golden Knights. This rest advantage is great for these top teams, and their goaltenders. On the flip side, teams like the Panthers, Rangers, Maple Leafs, and Avalanche stick out negatively, with more games where they’re playing tired than rested.
Sunday games
Sundays are the most important days in fantasy. If you have a roster that has a lot of games on Sunday, it puts you in a much more advantageous position over your opponent in head-to-head leagues especially, as you don’t have to rely on waivers to boost your roster on the final day of the week.
Here are the teams with the most and fewest Sunday games this season.
| Sunday Games | Team(s) |
|---|---|
| 17 | ANA |
| 13 | NYR |
| 12 | VGK, NYI, DAL |
| 11 | CHI, CAR, PIT, WPG, OTT |
| 10 | MIN, WSH, SEA, TBL |
| 9 | NJD, DET, UTA, COL, CGY, VAN |
| 8 | CBJ, EDM, STL, MTL, PHI, TOR |
| 7 | BUF, FLA, BOS |
| 6 | LAK |
| 5 | SJS, NSH |
This year the teams to watch on Sundays will be the Wild and Hurricanes. They have 11 and 10 Sunday games respectively and are both teams that should be among the league’s best in 2023-24.
Teams that have much less Sunday streaming appeal are the Bruins, Panthers, Maple Leafs, and Lightning. With very few Sunday games, they won’t offer much help late in the week and you’ll likely see most of the production from players on those teams end on Saturday night. You’ll want to have some options you know will be playing on Sunday to give you that extra edge at the end of the week.
Back-to-backs
Back-to-backs, or instances when a team plays on consecutive nights, used to be split up fairly evenly amongst teams, but recently there has been quite a skew. This year is the same.
| Back-to-backs | Team(s) |
|---|---|
| 7 | WPG |
| 9 | BOS, DET, VAN |
| 10 | CGY, COL, CBJ, DAL, STL |
| 11 | ANA, UTA, BUF, CHI, FLA, MIN, NJD, NYI, SJS, SEA, VGK, WSH |
| 12 | PHI, TBL |
| 13 | CAR, EDM, LAK, MTL, NSH, NYR, OTT, PIT |
| 14 | TOR |
Goalies who fit into the bonafide starter category will see a boost in value if their team has fewer back-to-backs, whereas backups in this setup will see a boost if their team has more back-to-backs. Tandems are largely unaffected by the back-to-back counts as they will generally see a shared workload regardless.
The Maple Leafs stick out here with the most back-to-backs in the NHL with 14., and the Jets with the fewest at 7.
On the high side, the value of backups like Anthony Stolarz, Jonathan Quick, Anton Forsberg, and Alex Nedeljkovic. It’s not the best crop of backups, but these players are worth keeping on your watch list for spot starts as required.
On the other side, goalies like Connor Hellebuyck, Jeremy Swayman, and Thatcher Demko (if he returns to the lineup early), get a boost as bonafide starters. They won’t have to relinquish too many starts to their backups with how few back-to-backs their teams have.
Games by fantasy week
Man games are always important in fantasy, and it’s key to ensure you have as many man games each week as possible. In the past, three games per week has been the average for teams, four games has been above average, and two games below. That holds true this season.
| Fantasy Week | Start | End | Games | Days |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 2024-10-04 | 2024-10-13 | 41 | 10 |
| 2 | 2024-10-14 | 2024-10-20 | 49 | 7 |
| 3 | 2024-10-21 | 2024-10-27 | 49 | 7 |
| 4 | 2024-10-28 | 2024-11-03 | 52 | 7 |
| 5 | 2024-11-04 | 2024-11-10 | 47 | 7 |
| 6 | 2024-11-11 | 2024-11-17 | 49 | 7 |
| 7 | 2024-11-18 | 2024-11-24 | 46 | 7 |
| 8 | 2024-11-25 | 2024-12-01 | 59 | 7 |
| 9 | 2024-12-02 | 2024-12-08 | 50 | 7 |
| 10 | 2024-12-09 | 2024-12-15 | 51 | 7 |
| 11 | 2024-12-16 | 2024-12-22 | 51 | 7 |
| 12 | 2024-12-23 | 2024-12-29 | 41 | 7 |
| 13 | 2024-12-30 | 2025-01-05 | 51 | 7 |
| 14 | 2025-01-06 | 2025-01-12 | 52 | 7 |
| 15 | 2025-01-13 | 2025-01-19 | 51 | 7 |
| 16 | 2025-01-20 | 2025-01-26 | 54 | 7 |
| 17 | 2025-01-27 | 2025-02-02 | 50 | 7 |
| 18 | 2025-02-03 | 2025-02-09 | 48 | 7 |
| 19 | 2025-02-10 | 2025-03-02 | 75 | 21 |
| 20 | 2025-03-03 | 2025-03-09 | 54 | 7 |
| 21 | 2025-03-10 | 2025-03-16 | 52 | 7 |
| 22 | 2025-03-17 | 2025-03-23 | 52 | 7 |
| 23 | 2025-03-24 | 2025-03-30 | 53 | 7 |
| 24 | 2025-03-31 | 2025-04-06 | 52 | 7 |
| 25 | 2025-04-07 | 2025-04-17 | 83 | 11 |
The average number of games per week is 52, up slightly from last year as there are 25 weeks of fantasy in 2024-25 as opposed to 27 in 2023-24.
Other observations
Outside of the key schedule observations we’ve discussed above, here are a few random quirks about the 2024-25 NHL schedule:
- The Sabres only have one game all year where they’re playing rested against a team that is tired
- The Bruins have just two games on Fridays this season
- The Ducks lead the league in off day games and in Sunday games
If you have noticed something interesting with the schedule that we haven’t, let us know on social media @wincolumnCGY or in the comments!
You must be logged in to post a comment.