Welcome to a new year of the daily fantasy hockey morning coffee. The new year starts off with only two games on our night slate to work with.
Boston Bruins @ New Jersey Devils (Boston, -140, 5 over/under)
Colorado Avalanche @ Vancouver Canucks (Vancouver, -155, 5.5 over/under)
Tonight my top target out of these four teams will be on the Boston side (Vancouver is a 1A). While Boston has struggled to score this season they get a New Jersey team that allowed an NHL second-worst 3.67 goals against in the month of December and allowed five or more goals six times in December. Boston has also shown some scoring touch with 10 goals over their past three games. The top line of Brad Marchand/Patrice Bergeron/David Pastrnak might be the most popular play on a two-game slate … and for good reason.
Over his past five game Bergeron has three goals and has fired 20 shots on net. Marchand has a goal and three assists over his past five games and while Pastrnak has been held goalless over his past six games he has fired 23 shots on net over that time and is squarely in play on a two game slate. Pastrnak did have nine points in 14 games in December and with Bergeron and Marchand picking up their games a bit Pastrnak should get more room to work.
Boston’s second line of Ryan Spooner/David Krejci/Frank Vatrano is a very intriguing play tonight. In a very small sample size Vatrano has a CF/60 of 68.21 (60.2% at even strength) and has four points in five games played. Spooner has three goals and four assists over his past five games — including three power play goals.
New Jersey was only better than Arizona and Colorado in December with an average of 2.00 goals for per game. Since every team is in play on a two game slate all eyes will be on