The Fantasy Hockey Weekly Planner is the essential guide to setting your lineup for the upcoming week. Every Friday, we provide you with top matchups, the latest news and give you the scoop on injured players.

Projections are for Nov. 19-25 games and all stats are through Thursday.

Number of games on the schedule for each team this week
Four games Three games One game
Atlanta Boston Anaheim San Jose
Calgary Buffalo Chicago
Carolina Florida Colorado
Dallas New Jersey Columbus
Los Angeles Philadelphia Detroit
Montreal Pittsburgh Edmonton
N.Y. Islanders Toronto Minnesota
N.Y. Rangers
Nashville
Ottawa
Phoenix
St. Louis


Tampa Bay


Vancouver


Washington


Bold indicates a team has at least three home games.
Italics indicates a team has at least three road games.
The following teams have back-to-back games in the upcoming scoring period, which means it's likely a backup goalie could start the second game: Atlanta, Boston, Buffalo, Calgary, Carolina, Columbus, Detroit, Los Angeles, Minnesota, Montreal, New Jersey, N.Y. Islanders, Ottawa, Philadelphia, Phoenix, Pittsburgh, Tampa Bay, Toronto, Vancouver and Washington.

On tap: Week 8 brings us eight nationally televised games in either the United States or Canada: Tampa Bay at Atlanta (US) on Monday; Boston at Toronto (US) on Tuesday; Ottawa at Buffalo (CAN) on Wednesday; Toronto at Phoenix (CAN), Chicago at Edmonton (CAN) on Saturday.

F A N T A S Y   S P I N S

Marian Gaborik issued an apology to Fantasy owners on Rogers Sportsnet and Sportsnet.ca this week, in response to the system used by the Minnesota Wild. "When developing this team it is obvious that management paid no attention to Fantasy owners, but instead selfishly decided that winning games was more important," Gaborik said in a prepared statement. The tongue-in-cheek statement came just before he returned from his groin injury, scored a goal and added an assist against Edmonton Thursday. It's safe to say that Fantasy owners everywhere accept his apology ... Both Patrick Kane (22 points) and Jonathan Toews (15) of Chicago lead all rookies in scoring so far. C Andrew Cogliano (11) isn't too far behind, and he's second only to Kane (15) in assists (8). San Jose's Devin Setoguchi is playing on the Sharks' top line with Patrick Marleau and Joe Thornton. He has seven goals already, as his teammates are stellar playmakers and puckhandlers ... Anaheim placed Ilya Bryzgalov on waivers Friday, and brought up Jonas Hiller from Portland to back up starting goaltender Jean-Sebastien Giguere. Bryzgalov had a 2.55 GAA and we expect him to hook up with another NHL team. Don't drop him until his future is clearer ... The Bruins are preparing to be without Patrice Bergeron (concussion) all season ... The Penguins called up Kristopher Letang this week. He's an offensive defenseman that gives up a little too much on the defensive end. For Fantasy purposes, Pittsburgh's top prospect is worth picking up as a third defenseman.

Three Stars of the Week

Marian Hossa, W, ATL: He scored four times this week, along with a pair of assists, in three games. In six games this month, he has five goals and four assists, playing alongside Todd White and Ilya Kovalchuk.

Sergei Gonchar, D, PIT: The Russian blue-liner has three goals and three assists in his past four games.

Chris Mason, G, NAS: The five-year veteran has not lost in four consecutive games, making a total of 92 saves, and the Predators are finally getting out of him what they hoped to see in October. He has yet to lose this month and he's only owned in 72 percent of CBSSports.com leagues.

F I V E   T E A M S   W I T H   F A V O R A B L E   M A T C H U P S
The following five teams have the best matchups for the upcoming week. That doesn't necessarily mean they will post the best Fantasy stats, but if you're looking for a one-week start or are trying to make a difficult decision between two players to use, lean toward players from these teams:
Team 11/19 11/20 11/21 11/22 11/23 11/24 11/25
Carolina Hurricanes -- -- PHI -- TB @WAS --
The Canes are scoring over 3.60 goals per game, which leads the league, and they have three games this week.
Tampa Bay Lightning @ATL -- NYR -- @CAR NJ --
With 60 goals scored so far, the Lightning are in the top five in the NHL. They face the worst goaltending in the league (ATL) and they'll get New Jersey on the back end of a back-to-back which could see former TB goalie Kevin Weekes, rather than future Hall of Famer Martin Brodeur.
Dallas Stars LA -- ANA -- TOR -- @NYR
Three home games, two of which are against horrible defenses (LA, TOR) with GAA's higher than 3.35.
Washington Capitals FLA -- ATL -- @PHI CAR --
The Caps are at the Verizon Center for three games. Two games are against Florida and Atlanta, two of the bottom-10 defenses in the league.
Phoenix Coyotes -- -- LA -- @ANA TOR --
With the same opponents as the Stars, the Coyotes also face subpar goaltending in Week 8.
F I V E   T E A M S   W I T H   P O O R   M A T C H U P S
The following five teams have the worst matchups for the upcoming week. That doesn't necessarily mean you should reserve every player from these teams, but try to avoid less-heralded performers from these squads if you have a better alternative:
Team 11/19 11/20 11/21 11/22 11/23 11/24 11/25
San Jose Sharks -- -- -- -- -- LA --
Slow week with just one game on the docket, while everyone else has at least two.
Los Angeles Kings @DAL -- @PHO -- -- @SJ @ANA
Only team with four away games this week and the have just two wins in eight games on the road so far.
Pittsburgh Penguins -- -- NJ @OTT -- @ATL --
The Pens have just three wins in their past 10 games. They're scoring just 2.38 goals per game in November.
New Jersey Devils -- -- @PIT -- @ATL @TB --
Three road games for the Devils, where they are averaging just 2.17 goals per game, which ranks them 24th in the league.
Edmonton Oilers -- VAN -- COL -- CHI --
They might have three home games, but they have the third-worst goal differential in the league on their home ice.

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