DET @ MIN
The Wild have the highest team goal total on this slate, so many people will try to cram as many Minnesota players into their lineup as possible. Don’t be like those people! DET isn’t a great team, but they won’t get run over by Minnesota. Eric Staal and Mikael Granlund are out of price range on this slate, but people will still try to load up on them. This is the perfect time to go the opposite direction. MIN2 is a nice option to look at, but I would limit my exposure to Charlie Coyle and Zach Parise.
This same logic goes for Ryan Suter and Jared Spurgeon. Spurgeon has the better price tag on both FanDuel and DraftKings, so he’s the one you should target when building your lineups. In goal, Devan Dubnyk is a no brainer. DET has the lowest team total of the night and Minnesota is a heavy favourite.
On the flip side, Detroit has a lot of value to offer, especially on the second line. I’ll have some shares in Andreas Athanasiou and Tyler Bertuzzi. They are basically free on FD. Bertuzzi is a high risk/high reward play due to the fact that he doesn’t shoot the puck that often, but if he manages to pick up just one point in this game, he hits value.
WPG @ CAR
Here’s a matchup in really in love with. Vegas right now has both the Jets and Hurricanes sitting at the exact same team goal total (2.8), which shouldn’t be the case. Cam Ward is expected to get the start tonight, but let’s not pretend like he’s as good as Connor Hellebuyck. Carolina can fire a ton of pucks on goal, but they’re shooting percentage (Sh%) is close to the bottom of the league.
It’s going to be hard to pay up for Mark Scheifele and Blake Wheeler, so go the secondary route and stack Paul Stastny, Patrik Laine and Nikolaj Ehlers. Stastny and Laine are on the top power play unit, so they are the mini-stack to consider. On top of it, Stastny is $5600 on FD, which is below the median player price.
If you want to go full WPG stack, Dustin Byfuglien is the way to go. He’s the second most expensive defenceman on this slate behind Brent Burns, but the price difference between to the two is about $1200, depending on the site.If you don’t want to pay the premium for Burns, go for Byfuglien.
Connor Hellebuyck is in an excellent spot tonight. For some reason, FD has him priced at $8200, so that’s where he should be used. His ownership may be high, but that shouldn’t be a reason to fade him.
On the flip side, Carolina forwards are not an option for me tonight on this slate. There’s no good reason for me to pay for Jordan Staal or Sebastian Aho. I’ll have Noah Hanifin in one lineup, and that’s about all.
CBJ @ SJS
If you follow me on twitter, you already know the golden rule-- never play SJ1, ever. That top line has disappointed me so much this season that I some nights I just want to throw my popcorn at the television in disgust. I’m sticking to that golden rule tonight, but I’ll gladly go the route of SJ2! Logan Couture and Tomas Hertl both see time on the top power play unit, and both play together five-on-five. What makes this mini-stack so nice is that Hertl is $4900 on FD.Sign me up!!! There’s nothing wrong with playing Joe Pavelski or Evander Kane, but salary wise, Couture/Hertl makes more sense.
Is there ever a bad time to play Brent Burns? He’s an expensive option to roster, but the SJ defenceman racked up nine blocked shots last game to go along with four shots on goal. His floor is just so high that he doesn’t need to pick up a point to hit value. If you can find a way to fit him into your lineup, do it.
On the flip side, the Columbus Blue Jackets have some value you can exploit. There’s a pretty solid chance that Martine Jones gets the start tonight, and you never know which version of Jones is going to show up. Nick Foligno is $3900 on DK, so he’s quite hard to pass up on at that price. On FD, Cam Atkinson is $6500, which is a very reasonable price tag for a player averaging just over four shots per game in his last ten games. He’s also rack up eight points in that same span, so there’s lots to love here.
It’s going to be hard to trust Sergei Bobrovsky on this slate, but he makes for an excellent GPP play. He’s $7400 on DK, which is very reasonable in comparison to his FD price tag of $8700. There’s no guarantee that Columbus walks out of SJ with a win, but it’s not sure bet that SJ wins this game easily.