After digging out from the 2017 March Blizzard we’re ready to get back into daily fantasy hockey. And I’m ready to forget about snow and get to DFS. The belt on my old Ariens ST824 snapped after a just few minutes of plodding through the mush and I had to go to the trusty shovel to get the driveway done. I’m getting older and haven’t hit the gym much recently — so I’m in that great waiting game to see exactly what part of my body I damaged this time around — likely some muscle in the back we’re not really supposed know actually exists.
Today we only have a four-game slate to work with to construct our daily fantasy rosters. There are two games I want to focus when focusing on the backbones of my lineups tonight:
Pittsburgh Penguins @ Philadelphia Flyers (Pittsburgh, -145, 5.5 over/under)
Boston Bruins @ Calgary Flames (even, 5.5 over/under)
The clear cut choice of the night are the Pittsburgh Penguin skaters. Tonight Pittsburgh gets a Philadelphia team that, on the season, has allowed a league seventh-worst 2.94 goals per game. While they have been better since the All-Star break (a middle of the pack 2.59 goals against per game) they have the tough task of shutting down the powerful Pittsburgh Penguins. While Philadelphia has been good at limiting scoring chances over their past 10 games with a SCA/60 rate of 24.25 (seventh-best in the NHL) their team save percentage of just .904 percent post All-Star break remains a lot to be desired. Philadelphia has lost three straight games and have allowed 11 goals over that time.
March. 9 — 4 goals against
March. 11 — 2 goals against
March 13 — 5 goals against
Since the All-Star break Pittsburgh has scored 3.26 goals per game — good for fourth-best in the NHL. In February Pittsburgh scored 3.08 goals per game and through seven games in March they have scored 25 goals. Over their past 10 games the Penguins have a SCF/60 rate of 33.1 — second-highest in the NHL. Additionally, Pittsburgh has the highest xGF/60 in the league at 3.09. On the road, in 5v5 situations, that number jumps to a league best xGF/60 of 3.16. As we noted in our Monday morning coffee, Pittsburgh’s HDCF/60 of 14.86 over their past 10 games is the highest in the league.
Our Pittsburgh Stacks: