Weekend Waiver Wire

Well, here we are again! It’s Friday, and the weekend is almost upon us. For the weekend of Friday, January 26 – Sunday January 28, we have five teams with back-to-back games, which presents us the opportunity for waiver wire spot starts. Let’s explore these matchups in further detail.

Vegas Golden Knights - @NYR and @DET

Pittsburgh Penguins - FLA and MON

New York Rangers - VGK and @OTT

Florida Panthers - @PIT and @NYI

Columbus Blue Jackets - @VAN and @SEA

The Vegas Golden Knights have two road games on tap Friday and Saturday. Adin Hill and Logan Thompson are both greater than 70% owned in both Fantrax and Yahoo. If by chance they are available, they would make a decent spot start. Vegas got off to a scorching start this year, but have cooled down a lot as of late. Plus, @NYR and @DET have a combined record of 54-33-8(0.611). Coupled with the fact that it is back-to-back road games makes for tough matchups.

The Columbus Blue Jackets have two West coast away games for their back-to-back on Saturday, January 27 and Sunday, January 28. Danill Tarasov (20% owned on Fantrax and 2% on Yahoo) will get one of those starts, most likely @SEA as he started last Thursday. Even though he is coming off a win against the Calgary Flames, Tarasov sports 1 Win, 4.08 GAA, 57 Saves, and a 0.877 Save% over the past two weeks. Not the stats you want to see for a start to try to get you over the hump this weekend. He will provide volume in the form of saves, but it is a risky proposition to expect much else against the Seattle Kraken.

Pittsburgh Penguins versus Florida Panthers: The Penguins have two home games. They have been riding Tristan Jarry as of late and Alex Nedeljkovic (28% owned on Fantrax and 15% on Yahoo) has not played since January 11. He has a solid stat line this season in limited action, posting 8 Wins, 2.66 GAA, 406 Saves, and a 0.916 Save%. According to the morning skate, he was first off the ice and gets the first of the back-to-back, drawing Florida. The Panthers sit at 29-14-4 and are second in the Atlantic division, and rank 11th in Goals For and 5th in Goals Against. They are coming off of a 6-3 win against ARI and a 4-1 win against NSH. Taking all this into consideration, hopefully Nedeljkovic can quickly shake off the rust on a higher scoring team as of late. I do not like this matchup personally, and would only rely on it for volume stats such as saves.

New York Rangers at Ottawa Senators: Shesterkin starts Friday versus the Golden Knights. Thus, Jonathan Quick (45% owned on Fantrax and 36% on Yahoo) should get the start against the Ottawa Senators on Saturday, January 27. Quick has been fairly pedestrian as of late and has lost five games in a row dating back to December 22. Over the past two weeks, he has 0 Wins, 2.58 GAA, 42 Saves, and a 0.894 Save %. The Senators have also been playing better of late, their last game a 3-2 loss against the Boston Bruins. They still sit 8th in the Atlantic and rank 14th in goals for and 23 in goals against. Much like Nedeljkovic, I do not like this road matchup for Quick and the Rangers. You will get peripherals such as saves, but the GAA and SV% could be bad based on the matchup and Quick’s performances the past two weeks.

Florida Panthers at New York Islanders: Sergei Bobrovsky starts Friday, January 26 against the Pittsburgh Penguins. Therefore, Anthony Stolarz (15% owned on Fantrax and 11% on Yahoo) should be in the crease at the Islanders on Saturday, January 27. Stolarz has been solid lately, even though his stats on paper do not show it. Over the past two weeks, he has posted 1 Win, 2.85GAA, 56 Saves, and a 0.889 Save %. He had a clunker against the Anaheim Ducks on January 15 giving up 5 goals in a 5-4 loss with a 0.808 Save %, thus skewing his stats. In the other starts, he has posted a greater than 0.900 Save %. The Islanders rank 22nd in goals for and 24th in goals against. I think Stolarz makes for the best spot start this weekend if he is available.

Good luck this weekend and check back next week!

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