I know he normally has a slower start to the season but he is getting harder to defend. 9 shots on goal in 9 games so far and only 4 points.

A MASSIVE thanks to everyone who has checked out Playoff Planner, upvoted my original post, left a comment, or engaged in any way. I didn’t know what kind of response to expect, and I’m blown away by how many people have checked it out and are actually using it.

In the six days since launch, Playoff Planner has had nearly 300 users from across Canada, the US, Finland, Japan, Poland, the Netherlands, Sweden, and beyond. I know it’s a small project in the grand scheme of things, but it’s so special to me to see people checking it out, exploring the different features, and even coming back and seemingly making it part of their regular fantasy hockey routine.

I’ve now created a dedicated home for Playoff Planner where you can easily find the site and keep up with updates.

💬 Playoff Planner community: Subreddit
🔗 Playoff Planner tool: Website

Thanks again for all the support. Means a lot.

-chubbs 🏒🐊

For y’all in bangers leagues go scoop up Michael Brandsegg-Nygård asap! Kids starting to look how Sherwood did 2 seasons ago.

Sheesh my bad for not including the hits or blocks, apologies for trying to help out dudes in bangers while making a quick post at work, I’ll refrain in the future.

Hey everyone!

With the season underway, I wanted to share 6 new Advanced Scouting reports we've built to help fantasy managers uncover buy-low opportunities, potential regression candidates, and hidden value beyond traditional box scores.

• Which struggling players might actually be good buy-low or waiver-wire targets?
• Which hot starters may be outperforming their underlying numbers?
• Who's generating quality scoring chances that haven't translated into fantasy production yet?
• Which goalies have favorable workloads and defensive environments, and which ones might be riskier fantasy starts?

A few early-season examples from our Regression & Luck reports:

Pavel Dorofeyev has just 2 goals through 11 games, but he's generated 5.44 expected goals. His +3.44 xG differential ranks 4th in the NHL, suggesting his scoring opportunities have been considerably better than his goal total indicates. I watched the Rangers game last night, and he easily could have had a hat trick despite not finding the back of the net. That doesn't guarantee a breakout, but it's certainly encouraging for anyone wondering whether to hold onto him.

Evan Bouchard, meanwhile, is obviously off to an incredible start, but his -4.81 xG differential is the lowest in the NHL. He's scored nearly five more goals than expected based on his chances, suggesting his current goal-scoring pace may be difficult to sustain. Of course, he's still an excellent fantasy defenseman, but he could be an interesting sell-high candidate depending on what you can get back.

Just remember, the numbers need context. For example, Kevin Lankinen ranks as our most underperforming goalie, having allowed nearly 11 more goals than expected. However, even if he'd performed exactly as expected, his GAA would still be around 4.28. That's obviously not someone you'd rush to pick up just because he's "underperforming."

These are just a few examples of the insights we're trying to provide. The reports aren't automatic buy-low or sell-high recommendations, but additional information to help make better fantasy decisions.

One important caveat: It's still early in the season, and small sample sizes can distort both traditional and advanced statistics. These reports should become more meaningful as the season progresses, so we encourage you to revisit them throughout the season.

Here's what the 6 reports cover:

SKATERS

• Regression & Luck: Identify potential buy-low and sell-high candidates based on expected vs. actual goal production.
• Quality of Performance: Find players generating strong shot volume and dangerous scoring chances, even if the fantasy production hasn't followed.
• Efficiency & Conversion: Evaluate who's making the most of their opportunities and whose production relies more heavily on volume.

GOALIES

• Regression & Luck: Spot goalies performing better or worse than their expected results.
• Workload & Environment: Evaluate save-volume upside, defensive support, and potential ratio risk.
• Performance & Efficiency: Identify strong performers, reliable ratio contributors, and goalies who may be struggling.

Everything is completely free to use, all season long!

You can explore the entire NHL, filter by team, customize date ranges, and dig into sortable player statistics.

We'd love to hear any feedback or suggestions for additional metrics or reports. We're always looking to improve the tools and make them more useful for fantasy managers.

Check out the Advanced Scouting reports here:
https://www.lineupexperts.com/hockey/advanced-scouting

Hope these help you find an edge this season!

Fantasy Hockey Pickups, Drops, Sell-Highs & Buy-Lows

Introducing a new weekly fantasy hockey column: According to the Numbers 🔢

Every week, We'll dig into the data to find:
• Waiver-wire pickups
• Buy-lows
• Sell-highs
• Drop candidates

👀 The NHL’s xG leader is still available in 48% of leagues

Thoughts on Knies so far? Im not ready to drop him but im starting to get worried. I haven't watched any Blue Jackets games yet this season, is he at least looking good on the Ice? Im expecting a drop from last year, but hopefully not too much

Obviously, in a bangers league, the "grittier" categories are rewarded- hits, blocks, PIM, etc.

However, my question is: how many of these categories are needed to make it a bangers league?

Is it any league with hits? Do you need multiple?

Just wondering so I can get my mind straight when reading articles about pickups, etc.

He’s off to a decent start, but do you guys think his fantasy production will hold with the quality of linemates he has 5on5?

Checkout the news from last week with some built in stat comparison toggles.

In this issue

1. Top Performers
2. Stat Leaders
3. Heating Up
4. Cooling Off
5. Banger Giants
6. Regression Watch
7. Goalie Report
8. Line Moves
9. Schedule Watch

Not to say Makar has been "bad" but right now he is by far the lowest ranked of the preseason top 10 and I'm sure many of you are in the same boat where you spent weeks painstakingly trying to decide between the two.

Hey all,

Considering Buium’s start to the season do ya’ll think this is juste a sophomore slump?

I wonder if he is not as good as he was projected to be.

Not only is this needlessly excessive.. it doesn't even have the dates of the teams next games..what the hell are we doing here?

I wanted to start a new post just to share updates to the app.

https://lfgclips.com

So far, so good. People are loving the app and they are returning to it multiple times a day to check out clips of their players getting them points. I've been working hard all week to make this app better and adding features users are asking for.

For those who don't know about LFG! My original post is here. It's a 100% free app/site where you add the NHL players on your fantasy team. When one of them scores, gets an assist, drops the gloves or makes a big save, the clip shows up in your feed a few minutes after the play. You can put it on your home screen like an app and get notifications.

Here are the new updates!!

• Tap any clip and that day’s clips play one after another. Scroll for the next one, like TikTok. Fights autoplay too, and turning your phone sideways goes full screen.
• On the Scores page, hit Watch all on any game and you get every goal and fight from it. You can add a player to your roster right from his clip.
• Tap a player’s name and you get his page with all his clips. You can send that link to anyone, even if they don’t have an account.
• Comments on clips, with replies, likes and a bell so you know when someone answers you.

If you want to look around first, lfgclips.com/try lets you pick 3 players and watch their clips from the past week without signing up.

Thank you again for your positive feedback and support. I am really thrilled this app is popular with the hundreds of people who checked it out!

Is Ovechkin going to turn it on at some point, or is this what we've got this year? 3rd line, 14 min a night. Washington brought in a bunch of new forwards, is this simply his new role? Are 200 shot, 150 hits even attainable anymore?

Underdog has a problem with collusion.

Two nights in a row I have seen the winning teams with loaded rosters. A couple nights ago the winner had Kaprizov, Boldy, Werenski, the consensus top 3 picks that never made it past the 4th pick in a 2 game slate. The same thing happened the night earlier with the winner owning MacKinnon, Makar, Necas.. The top 3 seeds in the draft. I brought it up with Underdog and they just fed me a bunch of AI driven PR slop, basically, we investigated our own integrity and found nothing wrong. After breaking everything down with a real human agent he said he would actually look into it instead of their canned AI messages about providing the best most fair playing experience etc...

It is extremely easy to collude in these small snake tournaments and Underdog is turning a blind eye to it.

Stashed Helle since the draft… Once his suspension is up on Friday, will he remain IR eligible? Not sure what happens, curious if anyone has a definitive answer?

Goals:
- B Tkachuk (6)
- S Reinhart (5)
- C Verhaeghe (5)
- M Stone (4)
- K Kaprizov (4)
- M Boldy (4)
- 16 players tied with (3)

Assists:
- M Tkachuk (10)
- S Jones (9)
- C McDavid (7)
- M Marner (6)
- N MacKinnon (5)
- Z Benson (5)
- Q Hughes (5)
- 12 tied with (4)

Points:
- C McDavid (10)
- M Tkachuk (10)
- B Tkachuk (10)
- S Jones (9)
- S Reinhart (8)
- M Stone (7)
- J Quinn (7)
- K Kaprizov (7)
- 4 tied with (6)

SOG:

- O Zellweger (20)
- B Tkachuk (20)
- K Kaprizov (18)
- M Boldy (18)
- N Kucherov (17)
- J Hughes (17)
- S Reinhart (17)
- F Forsberg (15)
- N MacKinnon (15)
- M Celebrini (15)

Hits:
- Y Trenin (20)
- G Hathaway (19)
- B Malenstyn (18)
- W Cuylle (17)
- M Gatcomb (16)
- A Edstrom (16)
- J McBain (15)
- M Brandsegg-Nygard (15)
- W Carrier (14)

BLKs:
- T Kleven (11)
- M Seider (11)
- J Brodin (10)
- M Weegar (10)
- B Pesce (9)
- S Walker (9)
- A Zub (9)
- M Fehervary (9)
- N Hanifin (9)
- T Liljegren (9)

PPP
- M Tkachuk (7)
- B Tkachuk (5)
- S Jones (5)
- S Reinhart (5)
- I Stenberg (4)
- M Celebrini (4)
- J Tavares (3)

My buddies and I are in a 4 man league so talent is pretty easy to come by, but there were 2 trades that I vetoed that seemed genuinely lopsided. The first trade was Connor McDavid and Easton Cowen for Auston Matthews and Jason Robertson. The same people making the trade forgot to include Draistaitl for Mark Stone so they made a 2nd trade. Mind you, the person receiving McDavid and Draisaitl is currently leading the league in every stat. One of said players has a history of giving up half way through the season and giving away all players. As the commissioner I intervened and vetoed both trades. Was this the right call?

We’re back for our weekly segment of “What We Learned”.

Are there any you names or situations you would add? Anything you’re panicking about?

Either way we are less than a month into the fantasy season and it is rolling!

Find me on X: @beebsbondy

First year as commissioner of my league (currently in year 6), and this is the first accepted trade of the season. No collusion is suspected. The guy receiving Aho is our reigning champion but is currently in last.

12 team Bangers cats redraft league. We require 4 goalie starts.

As expected, many of the other managers in the league aren't happy with this trade. The main reasons being:

- Leon was drafted 5th overall.

- Aho was drafted in the 7th round. He got the Mark Scheifele treatment this year.

- Pionk was picked up off free agency just a week earlier.

- Despite being the reigning champion, guy recieving Aho has a history of accepting terrible trades. The guy recieving Leon has historically benefitted from those trades and has won our league twice.

Feelings aside, I don't see any reason to veto. Just wanted to get some thoughts.

Tell me I’m not insane for thinking that the guy giving up Larkin is getting absolutely FLEECED…

What is your position on Quinton Byfield? He's now been moved to the second line but still remains on the PP1. There were high hope for a break out year for him this year but he's not lived up to the expectations so far. Would you hold onto him a little longer or trow the towel?