Tampa Bay Lightning at Carolina Hurricanes
The Lightning tonight will head to Carolina looking to book their ticket to the semi-finals.
Tampa Bay has no injuries of note heading into tonight’s game. Vincent Trocheck, Nino Niederreiter, and Warren Foegele are all listed as day-to-day for Carolina, and I would expect them to be game-time decisions.
When looking at Tampa everything starts with Kucherov. He leads the team in points, and shots, over the last week. This cost is high, but he has been the most consistent point producer in the playoffs. After that, you have a few different ways you can go. You can pair Brayden Point who sees almost all of his time on ice with Kucherov, you can add Steven Stamkos, who gives you some line diversification, while still giving you power play shares with Kucherov, or you can go with Ondrej Palat who comes at the lowest cost, but still plays on Kucherov’s line.
On Defence, Victor Hedman’s value is obvious. He is averaging 2.5 shots per game, 2.1 blocks per game and more than one point. After Hedman though the dropoff is steep. Ryan McDonagh averages more than two blocks per game and might be your best avenue to some cheap points, and Erik Cernak has been shooting the puck at times, but him hitting value will be point dependant and that really isn’t his profile.
In goal, Andrei Vasilevskiy is a prime GPP play tonight. He is coming off back to back poor starts, but with the Hurricanes facing elimination, I expect them to put a lot of shots on net, and few goalies are as well equipped to handle that workload as Vasi.
For the Hurricanes many will start with Sebastian Aho, who leads the team in points, but Andrei Svechnikov has similar point production over the last week and is averaging three times as many shots, in cash games, I would look at putting Aho with Svech, in GPP games, you might want to take the lower owned Teuvo Teravainen and put him with Svechnikov. You can take a look at Jordan Stall, Martin Necas, and Vincent Trocheck (if he’s playing), but they are all GPP plays as they are not giving you a steady amount of production.
We all know about Dougie Hamilton on defense. He is averaging five shots per game for the Hurricanes, and he is capable of getting a few points. Brett Pesce is also a player of interest. He is providing half a point per game, and more than two shots and two blocks, for a much lower cost.
We don’t yet know who will start for the Hurricanes tonight, but I suspect it will be Petr Mrazek. He was very good in the Canes win on the 3rd but followed up that with poor performance. That said Alex Nedeljkovic is a player the Hurricanes need to instill some confidence in, he is set to be their goalie of the future, and he has proven himself capable of winning games for the Hurricanes.
Vegas Golden Knights at Colorado Avalanche
Vegas and Colorado have been every bit the series we expected it to be with two of the best teams in the league squaring off.
Looking at injuries tonight, Mattias Janmark and Tomas Nosek have both been listed as day-to-day for the Golden Knights, while there are no new injuries worth noting for the Avalanche.
If you’re buying in on Vegas, you are looking at either Jonathan Marchessault or Max Pacioretty. I give Marchessault the edge as he will see slightly easier minutes in Colorado as the focus will be on Pacioretty. That said Pacioretty has been the most consistent DFS performer for Vegas should always be considered for your lineup as he is averaging five shots per night over the last week. If you’re going to stack with Marchessault, either William Karlsson and Reilly Smith are viable plays, they have the same number of shots, while Karlsson has the slight edge in points.
On the backend, Alec Martinez is averaging almost four blocks per game in these playoffs and is as safe as any player on the slate because of it. He has contributed some points, but they will be sporadic. Alex Pietrangelo has the upside to hit all three bonuses on DK, and a high enough floor to justify his price. From a pure points perspective, Shea Theodore holds some value here. He won’t block many shots, but he is a consistent point producer for Vegas and isn’t afraid to shoot the puck either.
Marc-Andre Fleury is a cash-game play tonight. He hasn’t seen a lot of shots on goal (no more than 25 in any game this series). If you think Vegas will win this game he can be used.
Not much has changed when it comes to building with the Avalanche. MacKinnon is your primary place to look for points and paired with Mikko Rantanen they have a very high combined ceiling. When looking for a lower-cost option Brandon Saad has scored in four of his last five games and is a player who should get some strong consideration.
On the back-end, we have three players worth considering, Cale Makar, Samuel Girard, and Devon Toews. Makar and Girard have two points in their last three games, but none of the three have been shooting the puck with any frequency, and Colorado isn’t a team that looks to block shots.
Philipp Grubauer is among the few goals worth using in both cash and GPP. His last start wasn’t great, but the odds will be on his side of getting the win with Colorado at home, and he has also had games in this series where he has made 40 saves.