NHL DFS players have a short-ish seven-game slate to play tonight, but top-end DFS options abound, including Auston Matthews, Connor McDavid, David Pastrnak, Nathan MacKinnon, Tage Thompson, Brady Tkachuk and Erik Karlsson. Picking between the top options, or avoiding them altogether, is why this article exists. As always, Stokastic+ subscribers should double-check the members-only Discord for updated lineup and injury information. Let’s get to today’s NHL DFS picks.
NHL DFS Picks, Top Stacks, Lineup Optimizer Plays
Center
Patrice Bergeron (BOS at SJS): DraftKings – $7,000 | FanDuel – $8,100
Though Patrice Bergeron has averaged only 3.6 shots per game this year, down from 4 a season ago, it remains still the second-highest mark in his last six campaigns. He has landed 44 shots on target and scored five times in his last 10 games, so he is more than capable of bringing plenty of fantasy value through that peripheral alone. The Bruins’ captain has managed a DraftKings shot bonus in 21% of his 38 games played thus far.
Boston is going into San Jose tonight and the Sharks are playing their second game in as many nights, having lost yesterday to Anaheim in overtime. After a strong start to the campaign, San Jose’s goaltending has really started to let the team down, ranking last by save percentage since Thanksgiving. If they can’t turn their play around in a hurry, Boston could fill the net on them.
Adding David Pastrnak to the top line should give them a scoring boost: with the scoring winger in the top role, the Boston trio has scored 42% more often over the last three seasons. Bergeron’s shot volume means he can be used in a lineup by himself but with the offensive correlation his wingers have, a full stack for tournaments is in play on this slate.
Brayden Schenn (STL at MTL): DraftKings – $3,800 | $5,400
Since Thanksgiving, whenever Montreal’s top line is off the ice at 5-on-5, the team has allowed 20% more expected goals. In other words, the team gets much worse defensively without the premier trio skating, and that is part of what makes Brayden Schenn an option tonight; he’ll largely avoid that matchup as he skates on the team’s second line.
The other part of the appeal is the Montreal penalty kill. The Canadiens rank 28th in shots allowed and 26th in goals allowed per minute when down a man since Thanksgiving. They also lead the league in time short-handed per game. The home team takes far too many penalties and is having a hard time killing them off, which makes Schenn’s top-line power play status important for this slate. With all of the St. Louis injuries, they should be used heavily as well, something that wasn’t the case as recently as a week ago.
Schenn has averaged over 19 minutes a game since Christmas and gets a great matchup at all strengths for this tilt. At his price, he can be used as a salary-saving one-off option, but he can be used in St. Louis power-play stacks as well.
Winger
Alex DeBrincat (OTT vs. SEA): DraftKings – $7,300 | FanDuel – $7,900
Seattle’s team defense has really started to fall off at 5-on-5: in the team’s first 19 games, they ranked seventh in the league by expected goals against, better than teams like Pittsburgh, Calgary, and Toronto. In the 18 games since Thanksgiving, they have fallen all the way to 19th by this measure, behind even non-playoff teams like Philadelphia and this Ottawa roster. Combine poor defense with a bottom-three save percentage at all strengths and you get a team that ranks 22nd in goals against per minute through this stretch.
All of that brings Alex DeBrincat into focus for DFS players tonight. He has a great 5-on-5 matchup and might be even better in the power play; Seattle’s penalty kill is 26th by shots against and 31st by goals against per minute in that recent 18-game span. DeBrincat’s power-play unit has scored an excellent 12 goals per 60 minutes this season.
The correlation that DeBrincat has with Drake Batherson at all offensive strengths makes them a duo that DFS players can target tonight. However, DeBrincat has the shot volume and goal-scoring pedigree for NHL DFS players to feature him as a high-end one-off option on this slate.
Ryan Hartman (MIN at BUF): DraftKings – $4,100 | FanDuel – $4,600
One common misconception holds that Ryan Hartman’s production relies on him skating alongside Kirill Kaprizov. While playing with a superstar winger helps, his points per 60 minutes in 5-on-5 over the last three seasons is still 1.9 without him, a rate that would compare with Ondrej Palat and Patrik Laine. He is a solid even-strength player and his shot rates are generally strong, at least on a per-minute basis. Although it would be nice to see him on the top line and with top power-play minutes, but he can still be a productive forward even without those roles.
In his seven games since returning from injury, Hartman has just 16 shots on goal. He has also skated just 13:33 per game. But with Mats Zuccarello out, Hartman should see considerably more ice time. That is good for his peripheral floor, and with his team owning a high betting total, Hartman owns the highest projection from Stokastic for any DraftKings flank priced under $5,000.
Hartman has similarly great value on FanDuel tonight but is listed as a center. For a winger in the same price range, consider Brandon Saad (STL, $4,300) who is in the same great 5-on-5 matchup as Schenn.
Josh Anderson (MTL vs. STL): DraftKings – $3,000 | FanDuel – $4,700
We have outlined how poor Montreal’s depth is, but that doesn’t mean the Canadiens are bereft of scoring talent. Josh Anderson is on pace for a 22-goal season while skating under 16 minutes a night thus far. That isn’t great, but it’s solid production, and he won’t cost much on DraftKings tonight.
While Montreal’s depth is poor, all the injuries to St. Louis could create some opportunities for the Canadiens. The Blues rank tied for 26th by expected goals against in the 5-on-5 and 25th by actual goals against. The second-line duo of Schenn and Ivan Barbashev, a potential matchup for Anderson, has given up 3.2 expected goals against per 60 minutes this season, an awful defensive performance. That could provide the power forward with scoring opportunities against a roster that has struggled to limit them at the best of times.
There is no power-play correlation on Anderson’s line, so full-stacking here isn’t necessary, and minutes are a concern anyway. However, he has the skill and the matchup to create offense on his own, so he is perfectly acceptable as a one-off punt option to save some salary for the top options elsewhere tonight.
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Defense
Cale Makar (COL at EDM): DraftKings – $7,300 | FanDuel – $7,600
The return of Nathan MacKinnon impacts the entire Colorado lineup, Cale Makar included. With the top center on the ice with him at 5-on-5, Makar produces 1.2 points and 17.2 shot attempts per 60 minutes. Without him, those numbers drop to 0.62 points and 13 shot attempts per 60 minutes. The effect is magnified on the power play, which is scoring at three times the rate with MacKinnon as without him. It shouldn’t be a big surprise to see Makar perform so much better offensively with the all-world center on the ice, but to see the magnitude of the impact in the numbers is another matter.
Colorado is in Edmonton, and the Oilers have given up the sixth-most power plays per game on the season. To compound the discipline problem, the Oilers kill off fewer than 75% of the penalties they take, ranking 25th in the league. That makes for a very good matchup for a top-flight power play, and Makar leads Stokastic projections at defense on both sites as a result.
Morgan Rielly (TOR vs. DET): DraftKings – $4,400 | FanDuel – $5,700
Morgan Rielly has not returned to Toronto’s top power-play unit since returning from injury, but unlike other top power-play defensemen like Tony DeAngelo, Quinn Hughes and Adam Fox, who have all gotten anywhere from 41-48% of their points on the man advantage over the last three seasons, Rielly sits at 35%. The power play has afforded Rielly a good chunk of production, to be sure, but he remains an offensive force from the back end at even strength, and Toronto is still a top scoring team in all offensive situations.
In four games since returning to the lineup, Rielly has averaged only 20 minutes per game, with the decline in ice time a function of him not getting power-play minutes. He has a great matchup with Detroit in town, especially since the Red Wings will play their second game in as many nights. Toronto even has the highest implied team goal total on the docket. Rielly is fourth by projection among blue liners priced under $5,000 on DraftKings, and fourth on FanDuel for those priced under $6,000. He is a better value at DraftKings, but the matchup brings him into play in all tournament formats on both sites.
Goalie
Anton Forsberg (OTT vs. SEA): DraftKings – $7,600 | FanDuel – $6,800
In a scheduling twist, none of the top-seven shot-volume teams at 5-on-5 since Thanksgiving are on tonight’s DFS slate. That makes it tougher to spot an underdog who could see a lot of rubber for cheap. The next three teams by shot volume will play, though, and they are Boston, Ottawa and Seattle. The volume that Anton Forsberg could face makes him one of two goalies tonight, per Stokastic projections, to sit over 28 saves and under three goals allowed (the other being whoever starts for Vegas).
Forsberg excelled for a bad Ottawa team last season by posting a .917 save percentage. He had a rough start to this season with an .898 save percentage in his first nine appearances. But in the 10 games since, he is up to .930, recently shutting out Columbus. For NHL DFS players not wanting to pay up in goal tonight, this is one of the mid-priced targets to consider on DraftKings and is a great value at FanDuel.
Top NHL DFS Stacks Today
BUF1: Tuch-Thompson-Skinner
Using Buffalo’s top line tonight is largely about ownership. Stokastic’s top stacks tool has this Sabres trio around 20% by top-two stack probability on both sites but with ownership likely to sit in the single digits. That is a function of both price and the abundance of top options across the slate, giving this Buffalo line double-digit leverage, ranking among the highest marks on both sites.
Minnesota might present a difficult matchup at 5-on-5 but their penalty kill has been very mediocre since Thanksgiving, as the unit ranks 15th in shots against and 17th in goals against per minute. Buffalo’s power play can succeed tonight and offer sufficient leverage to warrant consideration for this slate.
DET1: Larkin-Perron-Rasmussen
Playing their second game in as many nights and visiting one of the top teams in the league presents a difficult matchup for the Red Wings. However, that is reflected in their ownership, as our Top Stacks tool has them with sub-1% ownership on both sites tonight. On a seven-game slate, any top line projected to be rostered at such a low rate should draw our attention.
As good as the Toronto top line is offensively, they are not an elite defensive top line like those in Boston or Dallas; the top Toronto trio sports an expected goals against rate of 2.6 per 60 minutes at 5-on-5, which is roughly league average. On top of that, the Toronto penalty kill ranks 13th in shots allowed and 23rd in goals allowed per minute since Thanksgiving. It really isn’t an awful power-play matchup for Detroit’s top unit.
It could be tough to get all the way down to Detroit in single-entry formats, but DFS players playing dozens of lineups should consider the top Red Wings line as an extremely low-owned option.
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