DraftKings & FanDuel NHL DFS: We have a seven-game NHL DFS slate on this Tuesday, but most of the games start late; only two of the seven games start at 7 p.m. ET. That means certain lineup combinations, goalie confirmations or injury news may not come until after the first pair of games lock. Being on top of information late will be important, so be sure to check our Slack channel for updates throughout the night.
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Mikael Backlund
DraftKings – $4100
FanDuel – $5200
When we’re looking at one day of NHL games, matchups matter, and the Philadelphia Flyers have a matchup nightmare of their own in Sean Couturier. Last year, Couturier was nearly three standard deviations above the league average in preventing shots against, which puts him among the elite defensive centers in the NHL. Now, anything can happen in one day, but picking players stuck in that matchup is a bad idea in general.
That brings us to Backlund, who should be matched up against Claude Giroux’s line instead, a much better matchup. In fact, over the previous three seasons, with the Flyers on the road and Giroux on the ice without Couturier, the Flyers allowed a whopping 21.9 percent more shot attempts, leading to about 10 percent more goals. Backlund is cheap, has seen his minutes increase from last year, and has maintained close to the same shot volume.Â
Elias Pettersson
DraftKings – $5300
FanDuel – $6500
It has been a slow start to the season for Pettersson as he has just two points and six shots in four games. The duo of Pettersson and Brock Boeser is still generating 63 shot attempts per 60 minutes at five on five, however, which is seven shots higher than last year. So it’s not as if they’re not generating shots–or even goals, for that matter, scoring 3.1 goals per 60 minutes–it’s just the power play hasn’t taken off yet and he hasn’t fallen on the right side of variance when it comes to collecting points when goals are scored.
Tonight’s matchups is a plush matchup with Detroit in town. The Pettersson line should be expected to matchup against Detroit’s depth forwards and defensemen, who are there in name only. For example, the second-line duo of Glendenning-Athanasiou has been on the ice for over 63 shot attempts against per 60 minutes in their time together in a Detroit uniform, an abysmal mark. Pettersson is a top-tier offensive player who is playing well but doesn’t have the results to show for it yet. This is a great matchup for that to happen.
Winger
Zach Parise
DraftKings – $4400
FanDuel – $5600
Be sure to check lineups at warm up because Minnesota played yesterday so they didn’t have a gameday skate today, meaning we’re not 100 percent sure on lines. It should be Parise on the top line with Mikko Koivu, but we’ll see during warm ups.
Regardless, Minnesota goes into Toronto and the Leafs are a very high-paced team, which is good for offense on both sides. Parise’s line should see a lot of the Rielly-Ceci defense pairing for Toronto, and that’s a great matchup for the Wild. That duo has been awful in the defensive zone for the Leafs this year to the tune of allowing 61 shot attempts per 60 minutes at five on five. For reference, only three teams have higher numbers as a whole, so think of Parise going into Toronto to face this particular matchup as if they’re playing Chicago or Detroit. Giddy up.
(Note: projections aren’t wildly different for Parise or Jason Zucker, it’s just expected shot volume and a slightly cheaper price favour Parise.)
Tomas Tatar
DraftKings – $4600
FanDuel – $6600
He’s basically unplayable at his price on FanDuel but that price on DraftKings is very enticing.
It’s uncertain how long it will take for everyone to catch on the Montreal top line being one of the best lines in the league, but they scored 3.51 goals per 60 minutes last year, more than Boston’s top line, and landed 36.7 shots per 60 minutes, third among heavily-used lines. This year, unbelievably, they’ve improved on both marks, coming in at 5.26 goals/60 and 40.8 shots/60. Both will come down, but it’s just to show that last year wasn’t a fluke, and this particular trio is elite.
Tampa Bay coming to town means a matchup with the top line and there’s no real telling how that could work out because that Tampa top line doesn’t have much time spent together. We do know the duo of Kucherov-Point has played to roughly a league-average rate in shots against, so it shouldn’t be too difficult of a matchup. Tatar is far too cheap considering the line he plays on and the shot volume he’s put up early this year.
Defense
Josh Morrissey
DraftKings – $4300
FanDuel – $4700
For some reason, Morrissey isn’t blocking shots. He had been good for nearly two per game earlier in his career but only has two in five games this year. My conspiracy brain is thinking this is a directive from the team because they absolutely cannot afford to lose him to injury given how depleted they are, but that’s just a guess. For now, we have to just assume it’s variance and he’ll be throwing his face in front of frozen vulcanized rubber discs traveling 100 mph again in no time.
The clear reason for using Morrissey today is his price relative to ice time. He’s averaged over 24 minutes a game this year and hasn’t played under 22 minutes in any game. Finally, he’s the power-play quarterback for a home team with an implied goal total of 3.3. Given baseline expectations in 24 minutes, his price tag is far too cheap. He should be a building block of cash game lineups.Â
Erik Cernak
DraftKings – $3500
FanDuel – $3800
For Tampa Bay’s game in Montreal, Cernak has moved to the top pair with Victor Hedman. That means more time on the ice at even strength, and likely often with the elite offensive trio of Kucherov-Point-Stamkos. He already is heavily used on the penalty kill, so this gives Cernak more time to get to the shot block bonus. Seeing as he’ll be matched against a high-paced line, those extra minutes will go a long way to getting to three blocked shots.
Cernak’s floor comes through expected shot volume against and his blocked shots. His upside comes from skating at even strength with that top line, as well as on a pair with Hedman. Given those two factors, Cernak is a very good tournament option for those looking to pay down at one of their defence spots.Â
Top NHL DFS Stacks for DraftKings and FanDuel
Vancouver’s First Line of Elias Pettersson – J.T. Miller – Brock Boeser
As mentioned in the section on Pettersson, there is every reason to believe that this line is as good as last year, they just haven’t had the results yet. However, those lack of results have driven down the price to where they’re basically being priced as a good second line, rather than the top-end offensive first line that they can be. All three guys are on the same power-play unit, giving us that perfect correlation. And, again as mentioned in the Pettersson section, this is a great matchup. All the stars are aligning for this tournament stack.
Carolina’s First Line of Sebastian Aho – Nino Niederreiter – Teuvo Teravainen
We don’t have a lot of minutes to work with, but in their 73 minutes together, the Carolina top line has absolutely throttled the opposition, posting 72.4 shot attempts per 60 minutes. While they don’t have the perfect power-play correlation like Vancouver, two-thirds of them do (Aho-Niederreiter) and perfect correlation is hard to come by nowadays anyway.
Going into Los Angeles was usually a tough matchup but that has changed over the last couple years as the team has aged. Now, they’re better offensively this year than last year, but they’re about as poor defensively, and that includes the likely matchup against Anze Kopitar, who has been on the ice for over 60 shot attempts per 60 minutes this year (in his prime, he was in the 40-45 range). Reasonable pricing and a good matchup brings this road line into play.Â
