NHL DFS Picks & Stacks for DraftKings & FanDuel Lineups | Tampa Bay Lightning and Patrice Bergeron 2/1/22

There is a huge 11-game fantasy hockey slate on deck to select NHL DFS picks. Some of the top games include the Bruins taking on the Kraken and the Lightning hosting the sharks, and as always, Awesemo’s Premium NHL Tools like NHL projections and ownership projections  will help with NHL DFS advice.

NHL DFS Picks, Top Stacks & Lineup Optimizer Plays

Center

Patrice Bergeron (BOS vs. SEA): DraftKings – $7,000 | FanDuel – $7,500

While his ice time can be somewhat inconsistent, Patrice Bergeron still averaged 18:40 a night for the month of January and that is enough for his cost. In those games, he averaged just shy of four shots per game, and that kind of peripheral floor is a welcome sight with those price tags. Just watch for his linemates as David Pastrnak was moved around in their last contest.

Bergeron’s problem of late has simply been percentages. In his 16 games through January, he shot 3.2%, having shot nearly 11% earlier over his first 25 games. He would be a point-per-game player in those 16 games if he just shoots that 11% again. That level of production is well within reach and his shot rates remain excellent. There is a reason why he leads all our center projections for pivots priced $7,000 or less on DraftKings and $7,500 or less on FanDuel.

Seattle’s penalty kill has generally been average-to-poor this season and has been more of the latter than the former of late. Bergeron has been excellent with the man advantage this year, even if the team’s power play has not been elite all year. At his price, it is a fair question as to his viability in cash games given all the options on the slate, but he is absolutely in play in tournaments in this home matchup.

Mikael Backlund (CGY at DAL): DraftKings – $3,400 | FanDuel – $4,800

Mikael Backlund’s second line has been nothing short of excellent in its current iteration, generating over three expected goals per 60 minutes at 5-on-5 in their 175-plus minutes together. The issue has been shooting under 5% at 5-on-5 but that should regress positively over the balance of the season. The important part is that they are generating a lot of shots and scoring chances.

Heading into Dallas tonight, this line is unlikely to see much of the Dallas top line, which is by far their best line at 5-on-5. Their depth lines tend to allow more defensively, which is great news for Backlund and his linemates.

On slates like this, looking for cheap one-off centers does not happen very often. However, with the matchup, line and price, Backlund can be used as such in tournaments. Realistically, it is a better idea to use him with one of his wingers, as they are the shooters on the line, so having a duo out of the three makes sense.

Winger

Jonathan Marchessault (VGK vs. BUF): DraftKings – $6,400 | FanDuel – $6,400

Nolan Patrick remains on the top line for Vegas and it is one of those things the team can try with Chandler Stephenson and Jack Eichel both out of the lineup. With that said, he is a step down from Stephenson and they are going to get the top line from Buffalo. That should make us a bit leery of using Vegas’s top line tonight and look to the second line.

On the season, Jonathan Marchessault is averaging 3.4 shots per game on the year and his price has come down, thankfully. That makes him a lot more palatable here tonight. Even better is getting depth matchups from the Sabres, as the team is controlling just 35% of the expected goals with their top line off the ice. That leaves Marchessault and his linemates in excellent matchups just about all game long. That applies to the power play as well, where Buffalo has a bottom-10 penalty kill by any metric we can think of.

The matchup tonight is likely to draw ownership, but Vegas has three lines that can score here. That hopefully spreads things out enough to keep Marchessault and his associates from coming in with too much ownership.

Artemi Panarin (NYR vs. FLA): DraftKings – $5,800 | FanDuel – $7,600

It should be noted that Artemi Panarin is now enduring his second season of shooting roughly 2.5 shots per game. That is not great for cash game purposes, even in a matchup that could be high-paced. It just presents a real problem even for a player being priced down a bit on one site. That price drop does make him one of our better mid-priced values on the slate, though.

One reason to use Panarin and some Rangers tonight is that it is a back-to-back for Florida, and it is on the road. A tough situation for them, and they are also one of the most penalized teams in the league of late, coming in fifth by time short-handed in January. Conversely, the Rangers generated the second-most shot attempts per minute while on the power play last month. The one area the Rangers excel offensively is the power play, and giving this team a lot of chances tonight could go poorly for the Panthers.

As mentioned, cash games are out of the question here but by our Top Stacks, the Rangers look to have reasonable tournament ownership. Panarin can be used as a one-off in these formats, but using him with some power-play linemates is just fine as well.

Panarin was showing up atop of the projections and models when running the Awesemo NHL DFS lineup optimizer today. Panarin looks like a great play. See who else is coming up as solid options tonight in the DraftKings NHL DFS Cheat Sheet and FanDuel NHL DFS Cheat Sheet.

Oliver Wahlstrom (NYI vs. OTT): DraftKings – $3,500 | FanDuel – $5,000

This is a road back-to-back for the Ottawa Senators and like the Florida Panthers in the earlier section, the Senators are a team that takes a lot of penalties. Not a staggering amount, but they are the seventh-most penalized team over the course of the season and about the same over the last month. The power play itself has improved but is not great or anything close to it. They are being carried by great goaltending right now (.941 save percentage at 4-o-5 in that span) and that just cannot last.

All of that is what makes Oliver Wahlstrom a target tonight. A fun fact is that Wahlstrom leads all forwards in shot rate with the man advantage this year. Not just on his team but in the league, and that is part of the reason why he has the second-highest projection of any winger under $4,000 on DraftKings tonight, and a top-5 projection for wingers $5,000 and under on FanDuel. He does take some extra low-danger shots but he is still on pace for double-digit power play goals this year. If Wahlstrom can get a handful of opportunities on the PP this evening, he stands a reasonable chance of scoring.

At his price, Wahlstrom makes the ideal one-off tonight. He does not need to explode to be valuable, and that also means we do not need his linemates. This is a good matchup, though, and he should get our attention for tournaments.


Latest NHL DFS Content


Defensemen

Cale Makar (COL vs. ARI): DraftKings – $7,300 | FanDuel – $7,500

Picking between Colorado defensemen can be a difficult task, especially with Sam Girard getting top power play minutes of late. However, with Arizona in town tonight, it is that power play we should focus on. Arizona’s penalty kill is allowing the most shots and expected goals of any team since the calendar turned to 2022. That means both Girard and Cale Makar are in play for us tonight. There should be a fair amount of ownership on Girard considering his price and that should lower Makar’s a bit. He will still be high, given the matchup, but hopefully nothing extreme. Makar is a high priority on the blue line for DFS tonight given the matchup, more so for tournaments than cash games.

Mikhail Sergachev (TBL vs. SJS): DraftKings – $4,000 | FanDuel – $5,300

The San Jose Sharks are going to be down two, if not three, of their top-4 defensemen for this game and this is not a team with the defensive depth to lose that. Not many teams do, but the Sharks sure do not, and that is great news for the Lightning and Mikhail Sergachev tonight.

With the injuries to their own blue line lately, Sergachev has been skating a lot more on average, skating 24:40 over his last 10 games. That ice time means he is averaging over two blocks per game in that span and he is also racking up seven assists. At his price with the ice time he is getting and the injuries on the blue line on the other side, Sergachev makes a nice mid-point pivot between the expensive and cheap options tonight.

Goalie

Juuse Saros (NSH vs. VAN): DraftKings – $8,100 | FanDuel – $8,200

The Canucks are on a back-to-back here which should give the Predators an advantage, and Juuse Saros in turn. He is top-10 in the league in both save percentage and high-danger save percentage, and the latter is nothing new for him. He has truly been one of the top goalies both this year and in his career, while Vancouver’s shot rate has started to climb a bit. Hopefully he can see some volume tonight to pay off his big price, but this is a great spot for Saros in any format.

Top NHL DFS Stacks

TBL1: Point-Palat-Cirelli

As mentioned in the section on Sergachev, this is a great spot for the Tampa Bay Lightning tonight, even if Nikita Kucherov misses the game. This particular top line is controlling 56% of the scoring chances when they are on the ice and they are not expensive anywhere across the industry. Mixing in a defenseman instead of one of the wingers is fine here, but the Lightning require our attention on this slate given the matchup. Just watch for Kucherov’s status, as it is up in the air at time of writing.

VGK2: Marchessault-Karlsson-Smith

This line is controlling 56% of the shot share and 52% of the expected goals over their last 100 minutes, generating over 70 shot attempts per 60 minutes. Unfortunately, they are shooting 1.5% in that span, just an abysmal number. They will not shoot that for the rest of the season, and as mentioned in the section on Marchessault, this is a lopsided matchup for their second line against the depth from Buffalo. There may be a reasonable amount of ownership here tonight, but nothing too concerning for such a good line.

*Additional stats from Natural Stat Trick

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Michael has been writing about fantasy hockey for over a decade, and has been playing Daily Fantasy for just as long. He has contributed to both the Chicago Tribune and the Boston Herald, has worked for Rogers Sportsnet in Canada and is now in his fifth season with Stokastic. He lives in Fredericton, New Brunswick, Canada, and can be reached on Twitter @SlimCliffy.

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