Broadway Bonanza - Week 11 Waiver Wire Pickups

Analyzing the best streaming options, schedule advantages, and advanced metrics in Week 11.

By Jeff Stacks · December 28, 2025

Welcome back Fantasy Hockey managers! Hope you all won your matchups in Week 10. I’m thrilled you came back to Fantasy Roundup for more of my roster advice

WEEK 10 ROUNDUP

Week 11 is here and the margin for error is shrinking on a daily-basis. Your roster decisions will start to have some playoff weight now. The teams that separate from the pack will be focused on exploiting schedules and attacking the waiver wire. It would be wise to think about limiting your waiver adds, and save them for surges at the end of matchups. Saving adds also gives you more opportunity to pick up underrated names that managers drop out of frustration. Hoping my picks can help you get a competitive advantage over your opponents this week. Included at the end of this article is a legend which has definitions for several advanced statistics I’ll be using to evaluate players, and any other fantasy hockey-specific terms or jargon I may use. Most Yahoo leagues allow four player adds per week. The players you can pick up with these adds are generally called “streamers”. In this article I’ll be outlining my five favourite streamer players for Week 10. One forward, one defenceman, one goalie, one “banger”, and one deeper league target. The first section is headlined “SUPER SCHEDULES”, where I’m going to list all the NHL teams with a preferable schedule. In the second section called “WAIVER WHIPLASH”, I’ll list my favourite Forward, Defenceman, and Goalie under 30% rostered in the standard Yahoo Head-to-Head (HTH) format.* The third section I’ve labeled “BANGER BEASTS”. This will highlight my favourite player overall for those managers in banger formats, which have additional stats: Blocks (BLK), and Penalties in Minutes (PIM), combined with Hits (HIT) mentioned previously. The final section is entitled “DEEPER DARLINGS”, where I’ll identify an underrated player rostered under 10%, for managers in leagues with 12 teams or more (also called deep leagues). Advanced stats are provided courtesy of Natural Stattrick and Money Puck.

New York takes the cake for their packed schedule in Week 11, but I see lots of potential in picking up streamers from Winnipeg and Florida as well. Depending on your picks, they may be even more valuable than a Rangers' streamer with three light nights each. A strategy you can employ this week is picking up a New York Ranger on Monday, then dropping them on Friday in favour of a Dallas Star or a Utah Mammoth player. This can maximize your waiver adds and help achieve five extra games played using just two moves. It could also help reduce your games on the very heavy Saturday.

Waiver Whiplash

Alexis Lafreniere

Alexis Lafrenière is an obvious choice for a streamer in Week 11. With the Rangers having five games this week, Lafrenière has all the opportunity in the world to provide you with good production. But that's been the story of Laf's career, hasn't it? All the opportunity in the world… but never seeming to be able to put it all together.

Drafted 1st overall in the 2020 NHL Entry Draft, Lafrenière has never been able to live up to the hype. Not quite considered a "bust" like other 1st overall disappointments like Alexandre Daigle and Nail Yakupov, it must be concerning for the Rangers' Executive Team to see players drafted lower than Laf repeatedly outperform him. While he has played the most games out of anyone else in his draft year, a 2020 redraft would put him solidly in fifth place among the other first round draftees. Stützle, Sanderson, Raymond, and Jarvis would certainly all be drafted ahead of Lafrenière if the picks were to be done again.

Despite all the criticism and underperforming, Lafrenière does have a lot to give when it comes to Fantasy Hockey. He's not the best at covering any category in particular, but he does have the potential to give you production in several different ways.

Alexis has never shied away from laying the body. His 56 hits on the season ranks him at 66th among all Forwards. This puts Laf ahead of other more prolific hitters like Josh Anderson, Joel Eriksson Ek, Juraj Slafkovský, Evander Kane, Owen Tippett, and ties him with Adrian Kempe.

His shot volume is quite good as well. 62 shots on goal ranks him 115th, tied with Alex Laferriere, Gabriel Landeskog, Drake Batherson, Beckett Sennecke and Dawson Mercer. The only player other than Lafrenière from this group rostered under 40% is Laferriere.

Lafrenière's biggest knock this season is his lack of PP1 deployment. Listed on PP1 and bumping Will Cuylle down to PP2 in the December 12th Rangers' practice lines, this week could be huge for Lafrenière with a five-game slate.

Pick him up for the shots and hits, but with his lower OISH%, I would expect some more efficiency in his goals and assists production playing on the Rangers' top line with Mika Zibanejad and Artemi Panarin. Especially in a week where they're facing Anaheim (28th in xGA), Vancouver (30th in xGA), St. Louis (20th in xGA), Philadelphia (7th in xGA), and Nashville (15th in xGA). This is an elite schedule for point scorers. We'll have to see if Lafrenière lives up to the opportunity.

Vladislav Gavrikov

This week's Defenceman streamer pick is Vladislav Gavrikov. Like his Ranger teammate Lafrenière, Gavrikov has an elite five-game schedule in Week 11 to take advantage of. Outside of the schedule, another reason I picked Gavrikov over his peers is because of his current deployment. Adam Fox is currently on Long-Term Injured Reserve (LTIR) and is not expected to be back in the Rangers' lineup until at least December 27th. This means Gavrikov has taken over the void of ice-time Fox left.

Drafted by the Columbus Blue Jackets in the 2015 NHL Entry Draft, this is Gavrikov's first season with the Rangers and he is taking every advantage he can to play big minutes on this squad. Primarily a Defensive Defenceman throughout his career, Gavrikov has a unique Offensive opportunity in Fox's absence. Averaging over 24 minutes a night since Fox was sidelined, Gavrikov has taken the puck and ran with it.

Notching two goals, six shots, six hits and seven blocks in his last five games, Gavrikov has shown he's a player who needs volume to succeed. While his advanced stats generally skew below average, his xGF% ranking indicates he's in the right spots on the ice when goals are being scored, and being 25th in iSCF shows above-average positioning when his team has a scoring chance.

Gavrikov won't necessarily be a game-changer option for you, and should be more of a 5th D role on your squad. But playing in a top pair, PP2 role for five games in Week 11, Gavrikov should get the volume you're looking for in a streamer.

The NHL goalie is quite possibly the most unpredictable position in all of sports. While there are some studs in the NHL, all goalies are fallible. Even the great Connor Hellebuyck, widely regarded as the best goalie in the NHL – and possibly the world – he started three games this season where he played at a below average level. Then there are stories of rookies setting the world on fire. Jesper Wallstedt is a perfect example of this. Prior to this season, Wallstedt played a whopping five NHL games in the past three years. In those games he posted a record of 2-3-0, and put up a Sv% of 0.876, well-below league average. This year, Wallstedt came out of nowhere and began to dominate the league. In 11 games he has a record of 8-1-2, boasting a GAA of 1.95 and a Sv% of 0.936. Small sample size, but in Fantasy Hockey, you grab good goalies when you can get them. This type of change in performance is virtually unexplainable. In terms of advanced stats and underlying metrics, the current landscape can show how a goalie is performing relative to their peers, but there has not been much advancement in the idea of future indicators of performance. Goalies are voodoo, as they say. Considering this, I am not here to recommend a goalie for any particular reason other than they could have a good schedule, they could be on a good team, or I just like the way they play and think they have potential to produce good numbers. Take anything I say about goalies with a grain of salt, but know I have done research into them and am recommending in good faith.

Casey DeSmith

Casey DeSmith is the primary backup goalie to Jake Oettinger. Despite his backup deployment, DeSmith has shown flashes of brilliance in his short stints this season. So much that Dallas Stars' coach Glen Gulutzan has played DeSmith in scenarios outside of the standard backup load of the second-half of back-to-back games to give Otter a break. DeSmith has primarily started against lower-scoring teams, but his performances in these games surely increase the coach's confidence to play him in a wider variety of situations.

With a record of 7-1-3, a GAA of 2.23 and a Sv% of 0.920, DeSmith has far outperformed his backup counterparts around the league. In Week 11, Dallas has a back-to-back on Thursday and Friday. They are facing the San Jose Sharks (30th in xGF), and the Anaheim Ducks (6th in xGF). Based on the pattern of DeSmith's starts, I would guess they have a better chance of winning if Oettinger plays on the Friday. Therefore, expect DeSmith to start against the Sharks on Thursday.

Outside of this prediction, I can provide the underlying metrics for him but again, do not expect these numbers to reflect future performance. Casey DeSmith is strictly a spot-start volume option if you're in need of a Goalie appearance. He does have potential as a more promising option than most other backups considering how good the team in front of him is. Be advised, proceed with caution.

Banger Beasts

Jack McBain

When you're right, you're right… right?

What a phenomenal couple weeks Jack "Bring The Pain" McBain has had. As mentioned earlier, he did exactly as I expected since my last article dropped.

For some reason, Mr. McBain decided he likes to score now, in addition to his monstrous hit volume. Are we complaining? Absolutely not.

Since December 6th, McBain's roster percentage has climbed by almost 200%. The people like what they see in this guy. He is nothing if not consistent in Banger Category leagues.

With four more games coming up for McBain and the Utah Mammoth in Week 11, expect more of the same. Averaging 3.18 hits in his 33 games played this season, you can almost bank on McBain giving you 12+ hits. If you're in a league with faceoff wins, he's averaging over 5.51 of those per game, which shakes out to over 22 faceoff wins across four games.

As mentioned last week, I expected him to put up more goals on the scoresheet, and he did just that. Though I wouldn't put too much emphasis on points expectation for him moving forward. His underlying numbers don't suggest standard point production is imminent, and anything he does do will likely be on the luckier side.

You know what you're getting from Jack McBain. So go out and get him before your opponent does, otherwise expect to lose the hit category in Week 11.

Deeper Darlings

Sean Durzi

Sean Durzi was my original pick for the Week 10 Defenceman of the week, before Brandt Clarke's better underlying metrics and preferable ice-time took his slot. Durzi's advanced stats took an upswing since last week, putting him front-and-centre for this week's Deeper Darlings target.

Durzi performed decently well in Week 10. In three games, he tallied one assist, seven shots, three hits and 10 blocks. I'm sure we can agree those numbers don't jump off the page, but I would like to make a case that he has a higher potential than meets the eye in Week 11.

The Utah Mammoth are playing four games with Wednesday and Friday light nights. If your team is looking heavier on the Tuesday, you can look at grabbing Durzi for a mid-week play as a fifth defenceman. As mentioned, he hasn't exactly stunned with the eye test, but his underlying numbers are promising.

Durzi's On-Ice metrics are below average for a Defenceman. Considering he is on Utah's second pair and PP2 unit, these numbers make sense. I would like to note that the extremely low OISH% and elite iSCF indicates that he may not be playing with the best offensive players in Utah's middle six, but Durzi is driving offence himself from the back-end.

With four games next week, he should perform better than the average defensive streamer, and especially if he gets any additional deployment than he's already getting.

WEEK 12 PREVIEW

I want to hear from you! Fantasy Roundup has recently added a comment section below the articles to make sure we can hear YOUR voice. How did your Week 10 streamers perform? Did you use any of my suggestions from last week’s article? How did they perform for you? Anything on your mind, we want you to type to your heart’s content.

As mentioned in last week’s article, keep an eye out for our special feature articles coming out soon. The first will be the Fire Sale article, where I’ll go over different strategies on how to approach selling your players and look at potential trade ideas you can submit to your fellow managers. That will be showcased on the home page as soon as its released.

Otherwise, I wish you all well in Week 11 and hope you win your matchups.

Good luck, and stay stacking!

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