True North Treasures - Week 16 Waiver Wire Pickups

Analyzing the best streaming options, schedule advantages, and advanced metrics in Week 16 of the Fantasy Hockey season.

By Jeff Stacks · January 20, 2026 · Updated October 12, 2026

Before I begin, I want to ask my readers a question: Do you want to play hard? Or do you want to play smart?

If your answer was both, you’d be correct. That’s usually the best way to win. But if you’re sick of having to set an alarm to get a player before your fellow Fantasy Hockey Managers do, try the Fantasy Roundup Automated Waiver Tool.

It allows you to add every player mentioned in this article on a schedule, so you can forget about having to set an alarm when you want to make a claim.

All you have to do is sign in to your Fantasy Roundup account — or sign up if you haven’t already — and sync your league. There’s a button here to login and see which player is available. There will also be a button before every player’s write-up to select them in the Fantasy Roundup Automated Waiver Tool and get to those players before everyone else.

Now you’re all logged in, I want to jump right into the action in Week 16.

Week 16 has many options available, having six teams with four games and two light nights each. There are certain options that are better than others, and I want to focus on those in this week’s article.

I want to note, the quality is not as high on the waiver wire this week as opposed to previous weeks, but there are a few underrated gems I’m interested to talk about for Week 16. These players are a mix but mostly cover the Anaheim Ducks, Calgary Flames, Seattle Kraken, Toronto Maple Leafs, and the Vancouver Canucks.

Before we go deeper into these picks, lets take a look at my picks from Week 15.

WEEK 15 ROUNDUP

WEEK 16 PREVIEW

Week 16 is an interesting slate having only two true light night games on Wednesday and Friday. Monday is usually a pretty safe bet to pick up some light night players, but having 20 teams playing on January 19, 2026, you may want to think about waiting to make any adds. Tuesday or Wednesday have 16 and 12 teams playing respectively, so they are definitely more positive options to increase your total games played without losing much.

SECTION INTRODUCTION

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 16. 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 40% rostered in the standard Yahoo Head-to-Head (HTH) format.* I adjusted the roster percentage last week, and decided I would keep the same strategy this week for the first three waiver add options. Picking players rostered under 40% opened up the streaming options considerably and I will be keeping that threshold moving forward.

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.

Light nights have less than seven NHL games. Wednesday and Sunday are our light nights for Week 16.

Light nights are highlighted in green. Borderline nights are highlighted in yellow. Heavy nights are highlighted in red.

The Anaheim Ducks, Calgary Flames and Toronto Maple Leafs round out the next tier down in terms of availability. The Colorado Avalanche do not have many (if any) options available on the waiver wire.

You may still have some Los Angeles Kings players on your roster from Week 15. The Kings have just two games with zero light nights in Week 16, so unless they are on the top powerplay unit, the majority of those players are safe to drop in Week 16. Drop a King on Monday in favour of a player from one of the teams that have four games.

Aim to pick up players with the Wednesday and Sunday light nights to maximize your team’s effectiveness in Week 16.

WAIVER WHIPLASH

Jake DeBrusk

Jake DeBrusk has largely been considered a disappointment since he signed with the Vancouver Canucks on July 1, 2024. His point totals have been weaker than expected. It doesn't look like he'll ever hit his career-high of 50 points again, especially with the Canucks in the midst of a tank this season.

But don't you just sometimes need a kick in the pants to get going? Apparently, DeBrusk is just like all of us. After a below-average start to the season where point, shot and hit volume were all lower than in previous seasons, Canucks Head Coach Adam Foote decided to scratch the 29-year old Edmonton native.

Since that scratch, DeBrusk has taken the snub in stride. In the nine games since he was benched, DeBrusk has had a decent point production stretch, notching three goals and two assists in that span. These are not incredible numbers by any means, but what really ticked up was hit shot volume. Averaging 2.87 shots in 46 games played this season, DeBrusk has had 3.44 shots per game since he got the Foote on December 29th.

His underlying numbers reflect this change too. Being on the Canucks, his On-Ice and teammates' numbers have been quite poor, but his individual numbers have been relatively good. Ranking 34th in ixG and 27th in iSCF is reflective of a top line player, and DeBrusk has been that for almost 10 games now. His very low OISH% and average PDO indicate to me he is going to increase his point production very soon.

Zeev Buium

The second Defenceman in a row that I've featured on my article cover photo is the Vancouver Canucks' Zeev Buium. I don't expect the Canucks star rookie to perform as well as someone like Brandt Clarke did last week considering the difference in experience. I do however believe that Zeev is a future stud in the making.

I'm not here saying he's the second coming of Quinn Hughes – the Canucks' former Captain who Buium was traded for on December 12, 2026 - but considering how well he performed in the NCAA as a teenager he projects very well in the NHL.

In his last five games, Buium has posted a modest zero goals and one assist. He was even held out of the game against the Montreal Canadiens on January 12, 2026, but has since slotted back into the lineup and was trusted with an ATOI of over 21 minutes.

Despite these struggles, Buium's underlying metrics are promising, and especially for a rookie. Buium's On-Ice metrics are very good, being ranked 25th in CF%, 38th in SCF% and 41st in SF%. His iCF ranking of 38th is also very good for such a young Defenceman.

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. 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 I am recommending in good faith.

Philipp Grubauer

Philipp Grubauer has been a riskier goalie start for several years now. Like I mentioned in the Goalie Sidebar, a goalie's past starts mean virtually nothing to reflect on future performance. This absolutely applies to the Seattle Kraken goaltender.

Grubauer this season racked up nine wins, a 2.29 GAA and a 0.922 SV%. Grubauer has been a massive help backstopping his team as a tandem with fellow tendy Joey Daccord. Seattle has been overperforming expectations sitting at third place in the Pacific Division, and that type of positive team play tends to echo solid goaltending.

In addition to his great regular season stats, Grubauer's advanced stats display unexpected talent. In his 17 games played this season, Grubauer ranks 3rd in GAA>X, 4th in GSAx and 5th in SV%>X.

Again, this means nothing in terms of his future performances, but considering how well Daccord has also performed on the same team, I would hazard a guess it has to do with Seattle’s defensive structure. In the past 10 games, Seattle ranks 8th in Expected Goals Against and 11th in Goals Against Above Expected, leading to higher scoring teams having a tougher time penetrating their blueline.

Banger Beasts

Adam Klapka

I've been wanting to talk about Adam Klapka since I started writing for Fantasy Roundup. Week 16 has been the best opportunity to delve into this monster with Calgary's good schedule. Are you ready to Klapka those cheeks?

Adam Klapka is a behemoth. Possessing a 6’8” 235lb frame, he’s an intimidating player. Klapka is not afraid to drop the gloves, nor does he shy away from smashing bodies on the forecheck. Klapka also jumps out to me as a great option as he’s been skating with Nazem Kadri on the Flames’ top line at even-strength.

Klapka has a huge hit total of 169 this season, along with 74 PIMs and four fights. Take a look at his heavyweight bout against repeated Stacks’ Pick - I’m gonna trademark that – Jack “Bring The Pain” McBain. McBain is a tough customer, and Klapka held his own against the Utah Mammoth Power Forward.

Don’t expect much in terms of point production in Week 16, but playing with Kadri certainly boosts his potential. Averaging 4.86 hits in the past two weeks, Adam Klapka is a surefire bet to smash your opponent in Week 16.

Deeper Darlings

Matias Maccelli

This week's Deeper Darlings pick was a tougher one for me. There were several underrated options available rostered under 10%, but none with the exposure and deployment that Matias Maccelli has right now on the Toronto Maple Leafs.

Running his numbers and his underlying metrics, Maccelli beat out the likes of Conor Garland, Shane Wright and Ross Colton. Pair that with his even strength linemates in John Tavares and William Nylander, and his PP1 deployment with those two as well as Leafs' Captain Auston Matthews, Maccelli was the clear option to me to grab in very deep leagues.

Matias Maccelli unfortunately entered the Toronto market with lots of media and fan hype. There were radio comparisons to Mitch Marner. There were whispers of slotting him in as a lock on the to line with Matthews. This hype was a common – and all the while unnecessary – Toronto market burden placed on the Finnish winger.

None of these projections came to fruition. With a lot of hype and not much to back it up, Maccelli was not a favourite of the Maple Leafs’ Head Coach Craig Berube. If fans thought Berube’s treatment of Nick Robertson was poor, at least Jason’s little brother wasn’t out of the lineup for nine games in December 2025.

That said, Matias came back from his absence as a changed man. In the 14 games since he returned in a December 20, 2025 matchup with the Nashville Predators, Maccelli has tacked three goals and seven assists to his season total. Moderate numbers to be sure, but Berube has rewarded his efforts with very good deployment on the top powerplay unit since.

Maccelli’s underlying numbers definitely don’t jump off the page, but I do like to see a midrange SF% ranking tied in with a very low OISH%. With Matthews recently performing much closer to his career average, I could see Maccelli banking powerplay points by accident in Week 16 with the Leafs’ four game schedule.

NEXT WEEK PREVIEW

As mentioned at the beginning, all these players listed can be scheduled with the Fantasy Roundup Automated Waiver Tool when you sign in to your account and sync your league. Do your sleep a favor; work smarter, not harder, and get that edge over your league mates.

To build on the brand new Streaming Planner last week, the Fantasy Roundup dev team has in, an incredibly short amount of time, converted that tool into an all-encompassing Hockey Dashboard. The Dashboard allows you to view your team, make adjustments to your roster positions, view your matchup, make adds and drops natively, without ever having to go to the Yahoo platform.

There’s now also a Mobile version of the Dashboard, and an app is in the cards, but is still under development.

I’m astounded by how fast the dev team's been able to cook up the Hockey Dashboard, and working with them on this tool has been a blast.

I’m still in the process of researching and writing my next specialty article “Quinn to the Wild”. Following that release, I’ll be taking a lot at how the upcoming Olympics in Milan, Italy could affect your fantasy squads.

Big reminder to go to the comment section and tell me how your picks did this week. We would love to hear feedback from our readers and how we can make ourselves better.

Good luck, and stay stacking!