Welcome to the Wednesday edition of the Daily Fantasy Hockey Morning Coffee. Today we only have a two-game slate to work with to construct our lineups. Let’s go through the numbers to see what our best bets our tonight.
Tonight’s Slate
Toronto Maple Leafs @ Chicago Blackhawks (Chicago, -120, 6 over/under)
Los Angeles Kings @ Calgary Flames (Calgary, -160, 5.5 over/under)
Though the Calgary Flames have struggled on offense the past two games they do get the Los Angeles Kings on a the second night of a back-to-back, and that’s where I will start my roster construction tonight. We wrote up the Calgary Flames on Monday and they went on to score … one goal. Still, I think it was right call based on the numbers and I don’t want one game to taint what what the numbers tell us tonight: that we can stack Calgary against the Kings.
Over their past 10 games the the Kings have a league eighth-worst GA/60 of 2.77 and this month have allowed 23 goals over eight games played. On the season the Flames have scored a league 10th-best 2.88 goals for per game and in January, over the course of eight games, have scored an NHL ninth-best 3.13 goals for per game. There are certainly things that give me pause when stacking Calgary (but we’re working with a two-game slate so our options are very limited). L.A.’s SCA/60 of 27.23 over their past 10 games is actually the 10th-best in the league. L.A.’s CF% of 51.20 percent is better than Calgary’s CF% over their past 10 games. But their team save percentage over their past 10 games is the third-worst in the NHL at 90.68 percent.
We can start our stacks with Calgary’s top line of JOHNNY GAUDREAU/SEAN MONAHAN/MICHEAL FERLAND. This line has a CF% of 52.79 percent, a GF/60 of 3.16 and have an offensive zone faceoff start percentage of 56.91 percent. On the season this line has been the fourth-best line in 5v5 situations with 24 goals for and 481 shot attempts for. To that in perspective, that’s in a tier with the Stamkos line in Tampa Bay and the Tavares line in New York.
Our Calgary Snapshot
| Scor | Scor | Scor | Goal | Goal | Goal | Assi | Assi | Assi | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Player | Pos | G | A | PTS | EV | PP | SH | EV | PP | SH | S | BLK |
| Johnny Gaudreau | LW | 15 | 40 | 55 | 12 | 3 | 0 | 25 | 15 | 0 | 136 | 8 |
| Sean Monahan | C | 21 | 21 | 42 | 14 | 7 | 0 | 17 | 4 | 0 | 114 | 12 |
| Matthew Tkachuk | LW | 14 | 18 | 32 | 8 | 6 | 0 | 13 | 5 | 0 | 116 | 12 |
| Micheal Ferland | LW | 19 | 10 | 29 | 14 | 5 | 0 | 10 | 0 | 0 | 100 | 16 |
| Mikael Backlund | C | 9 | 20 | 29 | 7 | 2 | 0 | 11 | 7 | 2 | 107 | 26 |
| Mark Giordano | D | 8 | 14 | 22 | 6 | 1 | 1 | 8 | 6 | 0 | 120 | 96 |
| Dougie Hamilton | D | 8 | 14 | 22 | 6 | 2 | 0 | 12 | 2 | 0 | 146 | 45 |
| T.J. Brodie | D | 3 | 17 | 20 | 2 | 1 | 0 | 8 | 9 | 0 | 72 | 71 |
| Sam Bennett | C | 6 | 11 | 17 | 5 | 1 | 0 | 10 | 1 | 0 | 86 | 19 |
| Mark Jankowski | C | 8 | 7 | 15 | 8 | 0 | 0 | 6 | 1 | 0 | 64 | 28 |
| Michael Frolik | RW | 7 | 8 | 15 | 5 | 0 | 2 | 8 | 0 | 0 | 88 | 18 |
| Troy Brouwer | RW | 3 | 10 | 13 | 3 | 0 | 0 | 6 | 3 | 1 | 47 | 29 |
| Kris Versteeg | RW | 3 | 5 | 8 | 2 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 4 | 0 | 46 | 6 |
| Garnet Hathaway | RW | 2 | 6 | 8 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 6 | 0 | 0 | 28 | 13 |
| Travis Hamonic | D | 1 | 5 | 6 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 5 | 0 | 0 | 51 | 67 |
| Curtis Lazar | RW | 0 | 5 | 5 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 5 | 0 | 0 | 25 | 12 |
| Brett Kulak | D | 0 | 4 | 4 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 4 | 0 | 0 | 33 | 31 |
| Michael Stone | D | 2 | 1 | 3 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 56 | 91 |
| Matt Stajan | C | 1 | 1 | 2 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 35 | 19 |
| Matt Bartkowski | D | 0 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 10 | 9 |
| Marek Hrivik | LW | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 |
| Andrew Mangiapane | LW | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 5 | 4 |
| David Rittich | G | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Team Total | 131 | 227 | 358 | 99 | 29 | 3 | 165 | 58 | 4 | 1529 | 646 |
Our Calgary Stacks
Line One
JOHNNY GAUDREAU $8.1K
SEAN MONAHAN $7.5K
MICHEAL FERLAND $5.5K
Line Two
MATTHEW TKACHUK $6.6K
MIKAEL BACKLUND $5.6K
TROY BROUWER $3.7K
Line Three
SAM BENNETT $4.3K
MARK JANKOWSKI $3.4K
GARNET HATHAWAY $3.6K
Power Play Stack
MATTHEW TKACHUK
SEAN MONAHAN
MIKAEL BACKLUND
JOHNNY GAUDREAU
(D) MARK GIORDANO $5.9K
Power Play Two Stack
SAM BENNETT
MARK JANKOWSKI
MICHEAL FERLAND
(D) T.J. BRODIE $4.1K
(D) DOUGIE HAMILTON $5.1K
The game between