Welcome to the opening edition of the daily fantasy hockey morning coffee. I’m happy to be back here at Sporfolio offering my morning DFS NHL thoughts and plays. What I told my readers last season was to use this space as a way to get your day going with your DFS NHL research for the night’s slate of games. Paying attention to news throughout the day will give you a leg up on the competition if we get a cheap player who suddenly will see minutes on the power play or the top line. This season kicks off with a four-game slate with both Connor McDavid and Sidney Crosby both in action. I’ll be using Fanduel’s scoring system and player salaries in these articles these.
Tonight’s Slate (favorite team stacks in bold):
Toronto Maple Leafs @ Winnipeg Jets (Winnipeg is currently a slight favorite, 6 over/under)
St. Louis Blues @ Pittsburgh Penguins (Pittsburgh -185, 5.5 over/under)
Calgary Flames @ Edmonton Oilers (Edmonton -148, 5.5 over/under)
Philadelphia Flyers @ San Jose Sharks (San Jose -149, 5.5 over/under)
As we gather data on the 2017-18 season I’ll look to last season’s stats to inform some of my decisions in the opening weeks and adjust accordingly as we get more clarity into how roster moves over the offseason actually translate to on ice performance.
Pittsburgh and Edmonton will likely be the highest owned teams tonight. In cash games go right ahead and use McDavid or Crosby as the cornerstone of your lineups. And don’t hesitate to stack here. Last season Pittsburgh led the NHL in goals per game with 3.39 goals per game, were third in the NHL with a home power play per percentage of 26.5 percent, and were the most prolific home scoring team with 3.80 goals per game in Pittsburgh. We can stack Crosby and his cumbersome $8.6K salary with some salary relief by his (presumed) linemates Jake Guentzel $6.4K and Conor Sheary $4.5K. But don’t shy away from Pittsburgh’s second line tonight. I especially like them as a tournament play — and if you’re familiar with my articles from last season I always look for lines that have players who skate together at even strength and on the power play to maximize our potential points.
(there is still uncertainty in these lines … please double check all line combos before puck drop)
Line 2 Stack:
CARL HAGELIN ($3.6K) or BRYAN RUST ($3.8K)
EVGENI MALKIN ($8.1K)
PHIL KESSEL ($7.5K)
Power Play 1 Stack:
MALKIN / KESSEL / (D) KRIS LETANG ($6.9K)
Toronto and Winnipeg have the highest implied goal total of the night and I will certainly turn my attention to this game for DFS purposes. I want plenty of shares of Toronto’s top power play unit tonight. Last season Winnipeg allowed a league worst 33 power play goals against at home and only killed off penalites at a rate of 75.2 percent. Winnipeg also boasted a league second-worst GA/60 rate of 2.57 (only Colorado had a worse GA/60 rate).
I’ll be looking at