Friday, February 16th
Four games in the NHL tonight. Get ready for a decent sized Saturday slate and both sites are running some large Saturday contests. If you are new, check out the NHL DFS 101 write-up on my strategies for NHL DFS.
Tonights Match-Ups
- Flyers (Neuvirth – Unconfirmed) vs Blue Jackets (Bobrovsky – Unconfirmed)
- Islanders (TBD) vs Hurricanes (TBD)
- Avalanche (Bernier) vs Jets (Helleybuyck – Unconfirmed)
- Blues (TBD) vs Stars (Bishop)
The Stars are coming off their bye week and have not played in 5+ days. Most teams coming off their BYE are sluggish in their first game back and they face a good Blues team tonight.
The Isles and Hurricanes are both playing B2B games.
Goalies in BOLD are confirmed already.
STACKS
Winnipeg Jets … Mark Scheifele – Blake Wheeler – Kyle Connor
Colorado has played ok even without Nathan MacKinnon, but Winnipeg is the better team and should really dominate the puck possession tonight, which means lots of offensive zone chances for Scheifele and Wheeler. Kyle Connor is a decent value play as a third member of this stack.
Carolina Hurricanes … Sebastian Aho – Teuvo Teravainen – Justin Faulk – Jordan Staal
Aho is paired with Staal and Teravainen, which means if you want the full stack of forwards you have to lock in two centers (Aho & Staal). That immediately makes it more of a DK play where we can plug one of them into a Utility spot. Either way, I like the Canes at home tonight against the Isles who have magically gotten some great goaltending of late but remain a terrible defensive team
St. Louis Blues … Brayden Schenn – Jayden Schwartz – Alex Pietrangelo
The guy I want the most out of this stack for the Blues is Pietrangelo. He has recorded assists in two of three games versus Dallas this year and he correlates well with Schenn and Schwartz who are on the second full strength line but all three are together on the top power play.
Philadelphia Flyers … Sean Couturier – Claude Giroux – Shayne Gostisbehere
The Blue Jackets penalty kill sucks. How’s that for direct? The Flyers score all their goals on the Power Play. On a four game slate we might see this trio come in under owned for how good they can be since they’re on the road. I really love this stack a lot more over the Dallas Stars who are similarly priced.
C&W COMBO’S
This is where I start to plug players in first. Pair two Center and Wing combinations together and then build off that either by going full stack or plugging in one off’s from other combo’s.
- Mark Scheifele & Blake Wheeler
- Sebastian Aho & Teuvo Teravainen … What a world. These two have legit been rough on me in DFS as when I am on them they’re quiet and when I am off them they go off. So you are probably wondering if I am on them or not…. Yes, Yes I am….
- Sean Couturier & Claude Girioux
- Pierre-Luc Dubois & Artemi Panarin
- Brayden Schenn & Jayden Schwartz
- John Tavares & Josh Bailey … Quiet last night, but trust worthy in all matchups. You can play either of these guys as stand alones.
TOP DEFENSEMAN
- Alex Pietrangelo
- Shayne Gostisbehere
- Justin Faulk
- John Klingberg
- Ivan Provorov
Value Plays
C) Victor Rask, J.T Compher, Jason Spezza
W) Justin Williams, Kyle Connor, Tyson Jost, Oliver Bjorkstrand
D) Noah Hanifan, Ryan Pulock, Esa Lindell
GOALIES
In tournaments, if you stack 3 skaters, plug in the goalie as a 4th man in the stack to correlate the win. Below are my favorite goalies tonight.
Sergei Bobrovsky … Bobrovsky is the one that the Flyers let get away and if the Blue Jackets can stay out of the penalty box tonight he could have a really solid game. The Flyers get all their goals on the PP, but likely won’t see many. Although I like the Flyers PP unit tonight, Bobrovsky is the top goalie play for me. He should start tonight even though he hasn’t been confirmed as of this morning.
Jake Allen … Allen hasn’t been great this year and Carter Hutton has clearly been the better Blues goalie. That said, I like the way St. Louis is playing of late and usually attack teams coming off a long lay-off which is what we have with Dallas tonight. If Hutton gets the start then I would bump him up above Bobrovsky.
Connor Helleybucyk (FD: 8100) … Helley doesn’t have an ideal match-up for a tournament play tonight because the Avalanche are near the bottom in shot attempts per game in the league. Plus, they’re without their best player and as I mentioned above I expect them to lose the puck possession battle tonight. That said, if we’re just looking at someone to get a win and not get blown up, it’s likely Helley. Just don’t expect a huge game from him unless he can steal a shutout.
WARNING — DONKEY PLAY OF THE NIGHT!
Islanders Goalie (Greiss or Halak) … I suspect there’s going to be lots of newbies looking at the performance from Halak last night and chasing Greiss (or Halak if he is in B2B) today. Here’s the bad touting that will go on today. The Islanders give up the most shots in the league over the last month. The Hurricanes are among the top 5 in shots in the last month. No. Don’t do it in your main lineup… Don’t do it. The Hurricanes are going to score 5 goals tonight in my view. If you want to be in this dumpster, then play JT-Bailey-Lee who were quiet last night and add in Greiss/Halak as a hedge to another Hurricanes lineup… Dont make Greiss/Halak your #1 goalie tonight. ITS A TRAP.
LINE LOCK OF THE NIGHT: Scheifele – Wheeler – Connor (Jets)
ONE OFF STUD WINGER: Vlad Tarasenko (Blues) — I would rather pay up at Center today.
ONE OFF VALUE WINGER: Justin Williams (Hurricanes)
TOP DEFENSEMAN: Alex Pietrangelo
FADE: Dallas Stars
Credit: James Carey Lauder-USA TODAY Sports
