Welcome to the Monday edition of the daily fantasy hockey morning coffee. We’re working with a holiday schedule today and only have four games to work with for our night slate:
(top stacks in bold)
Chicago Blackhawks @ Toronto Maple Leafs
Washington Capitals @ Tampa Bay Lightning (Tampa Bay, -123, 5.5 over/under)
Winnipeg Jets @ Edmonton Oilers (Edmonton, -173, 5.5 over/under)
Calgary Flames @ Anaheim Ducks
The beginning of the NHL season has been filled with huge scores and we have the potential see another night of offensive explosions. Washington and Chicago are off to red hot starts as we can see with the top five point leaders to start the season:
- Alex Ovechkin WASHINGTON (7G, 0A, 14 SOG)
- Evgeny Kuznetsov WASHINGTON (0G, 7A, 1 SOG)
- Patrick Kane CHICAGO (2G, 4A, 8 SOG)
- Ryan Hartman CHICAGO (1G, 5A, 4 SOG)
- Brandon Saad CHICAGO (4G, 1A, 10 SOG)
The Chicago Blackhawks vs. Toronto Maple Leafs game has the potential to be a great game for DFS. Both teams have scored 15 goals over their first two games and both teams are getting the puck on the net at a great rate (36.5 average for Chicago, 36 for Toronto). Toronto has also clicked on five of their first 10 power play chances this season. Of course we are dealing with an insanely small sample size but the offensive fire power on both sides is real. Looking back at last season Toronto averaged 3.02 goals per game at home and overall they had the second-best power play in the NHL clicking at a rate of 23.8 percent. I’d have no problem deploying a Toronto Power Play stack tonight. One nice thing about this slate, even though it’s so small, is that there are plenty of options on the table and not one super chalky team — normally a problem with short slates.
Toronto Power Play 1 Stack:
TYLER BOZAK $5.4K
NAZEM KADRI $6.1K
JAMES VAN RIEMSDYK $5.8K
MITCHELL MARNER $6.6K
MORGAN RIELLY $4.2K
Toronto Power Play 2 Stack:
CONNOR BROWN $3.7K
AUSTON MATTHEWS $7.9K
WILLIAM NYLANDER $6.3K
PATRICK MARLEAU $5.7K
JAKE GARDINER $4.6K
Last season Chicago average an NHL ninth-best 2.93 goals for per game and were the 10th-best road scoring team with an average of 2.78 goals per game. Toronto, in terms of goals against at home last season, was actually the 10th-worst team in the NHL with an average of 2.98 goals against per game. Last season also had a CA/60 of 58.94 — third-worst in the league. To choose a “top stack” for this game was very close … and I like the idea of grabbing both sides of this game … but I do give a slight edge to Chicago if I am going to stack this one. On a small slate I don’t mind stacking any of the three Chicago lines in tournaments. In cash stick with the Kane line.
Line 1 Stack:
BRANDON SAAD $6.3K
JONATHAN TOEWS $6.7
RICHARD PANIK $4.9K
Line 2 Stack:
RYAN HARTMAN $4.4K
NICK SCHMALTZ $5K
PATRICK KANE $8.6K
Line 3 Stack:
PATRICK SHARP $5.3K
ARTEM ANISIMOV $5.1K
ALEX DEBRINCAT $3.6K
Power Play 1 Stack:
BRANDON SAAD
JONATHAN TOEWS
PATRICK KANE
PATRICK SHARP
(D) DUNCAN KEITH $5.8K
Alex Ovechkin and the Washington Capitals head to Tampa Bay for