Our Weekend Streamers series aims to help you steal your matchup by getting the most value possible out of the limited transactions in your fantasy league. Every Friday, I break down the teams and skaters with the most streamer-friendly schedules over the weekend.
This weekend features three games on Friday, 13 on Saturday, and six on Sunday. There are four teams rocking the Friday/Sunday schedule this weekend, giving us plenty of streaming options. After combing through the wire, I’ve narrowed down the top options at each ownership range in Yahoo! Fantasy leagues, starting with 30% – 21%. Good luck, and happy streaming!
30% – 21%: Will Cuylle (LW/RW – 30% Owned)
Cuylle is a banger-league darling, but a recent promotion into the Rangers top-six makes him a worthwhile target across all formats this weekend. Cuylle is projected to skate with Mika Zibanejad and Chris Kreider on New York’s second line on Friday while also featuring on the second power-play unit. It’s the first time all season this trio will skate together at 5v5, though Cuylle does have over 180 minutes played with Zibanejad. As you might expect given the season Zibanejad is having, they haven’t lit the world on fire at 5v5, but they are averaging a respectable 27 scoring chances and 11 high-danger chances per 60.
Cuylle’s remained productive and effective despite being limited to a bottom-six role for the majority of the season, and a little bit of extra ice-time this weekend could go a long way. It helps that he’s running hot coming into Friday night’s game, picking up two goals, one assist, and 9 shots on goal in his last four games. And then of course, there’s the hits. Cuylle is fourth in the entire NHL with 217 hits on the season, and is averaging 4.5 per game in the month of February. You can expect this all-around category stuffer to be all over the scoresheet this weekend. Stream him with confidence.
20% – 11%: Logan Stankoven (C/RW – 17% owned)
Unlike Cuylle, Stankoven is a much harder sell this weekend based on recent production. He has just two points in his last eight games and spent much of that time buried on the team’s fourth line. If Thursday’s practice was any indication however, Stankoven could be on the verge of turning the corner. The diminutive young winger is back on the Stars top line, skating alongside the red-hot Jason Robertson and Roope Hintz. The trio are averaging a robust 33 scoring chances and 13 high-danger chances per 60 together at 5v5 this season. That sort of offensive zone time along with the extra minutes should afford Stankoven plenty of opportunities to do what he loves most: shoot the puck.
Stankoven is maintaining border-line elite shot volume this season despite being frequently yo-yoed up and down the Stars lineup. He’s firing over 2.5 shots on net per game but is struggling to convert on those chances. He owns a lowly 4.9% shooting percentage on the season, which should actually be cause for some optimism. The kid is simply too talented to continue to convert at such a low rate in the back half of the season. Positive regression is surely on the horizon for Stankoven. Maybe the extra ice-time and high-danger looks he’ll see this weekend will be just what he needs to break the slump.
10% – 0%: Bobby McMann (LW – 9% Owned) and Nick Robertson (LW/RW – 3% owned)
Rounding out this weekend’s streaming options are a pair of Maple Leaf third-liners in Robertson and McMann. The two wingers flank the scrappy playmaker Max Domi, and the three of them quietly form an effective complementary unit for the Maple Leafs. McMann offers a sturdier floor coming into the weekend. He holds a deep admiration for firing the puck on net and is one of the more underrated goal scorers in the NHL, tallying 17 on the season. Robertson on the other hand has been much more hit or miss this season, but is one of the hottest players in the league entering action on Friday. That is, if you can count two games as a hot streak.
The 23-year-old winger notched back-to-back multi-point games and fired nine shots on goal against the Blackhawks and Bruins on Sunday and Tuesday, respectively. Both McMann and Robertson also feature as the two primary shooting options on the team’s second power-play unit, giving them multiple paths to production this weekend. A lack of ice-time caps their potential upside, but we’re scraping the bottom of the free agency barrel here and the Maple Leafs project to score plenty of goals this weekend against the Rangers and Penguins.