NHL DFS: There is an eight-game Daily Fantasy Hockey slate on DraftKings and FanDuel in front of us for the evening of Oct. 8 featuring a lot of teams that don’t play the most exciting or quickest brand of hockey. That doesn’t mean there aren’t good spots for us to exploit, however. Â
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Center
Jared McCann
DraftKings – $3700
FanDuel – $4300
The Pittsburgh Penguins will be without Evgeni Malkin for at least a month and that opens a spot on the top power-play unit. Following Malkin’s injury on Saturday night, it was McCann who filled in for him on the lone power play the team earned.
Assuming the loss of Malkin dooms the Pittsburgh power play isn’t the reaction to have here. From 2016 through 2019, Pittsburgh generated 8.25 expected goals per 60 minutes while on the power play. When Sidney Crosby was on the ice without Malkin–usually due to injury–the team generated 8.73 expected goals per 60 minutes. While looking back as far as three years is usually a fool’s errand, the power play of today features many of the same names like Crosby, Kris Letang, and Patric Hornqvist. (In terms of actual goals scored, the difference was negligible at 10.49 goals per 60 minutes with Crosby and Malkin compared to 10.43 with Crosby on the ice without Malkin.)
McCann will likely assume the second-line center duties, as well, so he gets a big bump in ice time in general. Combined with the power-play usage on what should still be a top-tier unit, and McCann is one of the better values at the centre position tonight on either DraftKings or FanDuel in any kind of contest.Â
Sebastian Aho
DraftKings – $5800
FanDuel – $7100
Carolina was able to generate at least 66 shot attempts per 60 minutes in 2018-19 when Aho was skating with either Nino Niederreiter or Teuvo Teravainen. Tonight, he’ll be skating with both players, heading into Florida.
Whether Aho’s line is matched up with the Barkov line–which averaged nearly three expected goals against per 60 minutes last year–or the Trocheck line–which features two average-at-best defensive wingers, according to isolated impacts at Hockey Viz–neither matchup is particularly difficult. That it’s a road matchup hurts their implied goal total (2.9), but it’s still similar to teams that should carry ownership in home matchups like Detroit (2.9) and the Islanders (3.0).
Along with Florida, this is one of the cheaper top lines of the night, whether home or road. We saw how good they can be together last year, and the matchup isn’t that tough.Â
Winger
Elias Lindholm
DraftKings – $5400
FanDuel – $5500
In 2018-19, the line of Gaudreau-Monahan-Lindholm was one of the most prolific scoring lines in the NHL, ranking near the Tavares line from Toronto in terms of goals scored per minute at five-on-five. Add that Lindholm also skated with that dynamic duo on the power play, and he ended up with by far the best offensive season of his career.
That he’s skating on the top line and top power-play unit in a home matchup makes Lindholm a good value at his price. On top of that, Calgary hosts Los Angeles tonight. At home, Calgary usually matches up Mikael Backlund’s line against opposing top lines, which means Lindholm and company will get the depth lines from the Kings. Those depth lines allowed over 15 percent more shots per minute than when Anze Kopitar and Drew Doughty were on the ice for Los Angeles last season in road games.
Whether part of a stack with his line mates, or on his own in cash and tournaments contests, Lindholm is a solid value in this matchup.
Frank Vatrano
DraftKings – $3500
FanDuel – $3700
Vatrano is a player whose breakout really took a few years. He often bounced between the press box and the lineup earlier in his career, but in aggregate from 2015-18, he posted a higher shot attempt rate per 60 minutes (18.6) than prolific shooter Viktor Arvidsson (18.5), and scored at a higher rate per 60 minutes (1.0) than names like Johnny Gaudreau and Mark Stone (0.97). A guy who always shot and scored a lot in small samples broke out when he got a full-time role in 2018-19 to the tune of 24 goals and over 200 shots.
Shot volume is the big reason for rostering Vatrano. He plays on the third line, which limits ice time, but even playing under 15 minutes a game last year led to 208 shots and nine games with at least five shots on goal. Like Athanasiou, he’s not necessarily a guy you’d stack with his line mates for tournaments, but he’s the perfect one-off for tournaments.
Defense
Keith Yandle
DraftKings – $3500
FanDuel – $5400
To be clear: this is strictly a DraftKings play. As is obvious by the pricing discrepancy, it feels like something was missed on DraftKings’ end here. Over the previous two seasons, Yandle was fourth in points by a defenseman, managing more points than elite blue liners like Victor Hedman, Mark Giordano, and John Klingberg. Â
One concern is ice time. Yandle is on what would effectively be the third pair and played under 14 minutes in Florida’s second game of the season. This isn’t a team that boasts a stout blue line like their opponent so he’s seemingly in the doghouse of the coaching staff. That limited ice time makes shot and block bonuses tough to come by.
This is a tough one because to-date time-on-ice doesn’t really tell us much and Yandle is still the PP quarterback for a lethal unit. But that he’s on the third pair indicates what the coaching staff thinks about giving him a plethora of ice time. At $3500, it looks like a free square, but I would rather use him in tournaments than cash games.
Shea Theodore
DraftKings – $4500
FanDuel – $4800
One of the best-kept secrets in the NHL is Shea Theodore. Over his career, according to zone entry/exit data collected by game tracker Corey Sznajder, among defensemen Theodore ranks in the 93rd percentile in shot assists (passes that lead to shots), 87th percentile in individual shots, 86th percentile in zone entries with possession and 91st percentile in zone exits with possession. In short, he’s already an elite puck-moving defenseman, it’s just much of the hockey world doesn’t know it yet.
Even more importantly for Theodore is that he no longer has to carry around Deryk Engelland on his defense pair. Quite literally, over the last 2+ seasons, Vegas has generated 17.8 percent more shots when Theodore is on the ice with any partner other than Engelland. That can only help his fantasy value.
This past season saw both Vegas and Boston in the top-10 league wide in shot attempts generated per 60 minutes, which means this game should be high-paced. That kind of game only favors a player like Theodore. He’s more of a tournament option than one for cash games.Â
Stacks for DraftKings & FanDuel
Florida Top Line of Jonathan Huberdeau– Aleksander Barkov– Evgenii Dadonov
This should be a popular stack if only because of price. At a combined $15 700 on DraftKings, they’re not far off from the price of the team’s second line, and every single player on the top line also gets top power-play minutes. Over the last two years, that line has scored at a similar rate to the top line from Toronto, and a higher rate than the top lines from Calgary and Dallas, all of them being elite scoring lines. And, for reference, the Calgary top line is nearly $5000 more expensive tonight. Â
Winnipeg Top Line of Blake Wheeler– Mark Scheifele– Patrik Laine
The new top line for the Jets can be tough to project because Laine doesn’t grade well by some expected goal metrics, but it’s his elite shooting talent that makes the difference, and now he gets an elite centre to play with. It’s one of two games tonight that features a total of 6.5 goals and every player on that top line is also on the top power-play unit.
San Jose Second Line of Evander Kane– Tomas Hertl– Dylan Gambrell
The old Nashville top line of Forsberg-Johansen-Arvidsson was great, but with Matt Duchene around, they’ve split up that trio. It’s important to note because from 2016-2019, when those three were on the ice, the team allowed 51.5 shot attempts per 60 minutes at five on five, a very solid number defensively. However, when any two of the three of them were on the ice without the third, shot attempts allowed jumped by roughly 20 percent or more.Â
While Dylan Gambrell is not the calibre of winger Kane and Hertl are used to having, the duo of Kane and Hertl helped San Jose generate roughly 60 shot attempts per 60 minutes at five on five last year, which is a fine total. Nashville was one of the 10 most-penalized teams in the league in 2018-19 and though they all likely won’t play on the same unit together, just having pieces of those units is important here. If the cap savings aren’t necessary, Gambrell can be left off, leaving Hertl and Kane as a two-man stack. Â
Outside stats courtesy of Natural Stat Trick and Corsica.Â