So I hit the nail squarely on its head Tuesday, with my New Jersey coming-out party. Dougie Hamilton, Jack Hughes, Jesper Bratt, and Mackenzie Blackwood totaling 54.5 fantasy points, AND then my foresight of Philly and Buffalo traveling into Tampa and Edmonton and coming away with road wins…. Yeah, you didn't see that coming either. Eric Comrie owners (46 saves on 48 shots), rejoice! Still, I was only three fantasy points from collecting.  

NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman opened yesterday's news cycle with an estimate that the salary cap for 2023-24 could rise by as much as $4,000,000, and this could make next off-season just as tumultuous as this past summer.  While Anaheim, for example, has $15.1 M space now, and another $7 M if John Klingberg finds another home, they have to sign RFA's Trevor Zegras, Troy Terry, and Jamie Drysdale, plus UFA Anthony Stolarz, who make a COMBINED $4.25 million this year. Extra cap space helps, especially if they add another forward. And that's just 1 of 32 markets. Auston Matthews will/should (?) out-earn Nathan MacKinnon. The free agent frenzy will start just before the trade deadline.  

For DFS today, I'm going off the grid. Minnesota hosts Vancouver in a battle of desperate teams who've not yet won a game. I'll choose Thatcher Demko ($26) over the Wild's Hall-of-Famer, as Bruce Boudreau tightens his defense. Quinn Hughes ($20) and Elias Pettersson ($24) will both find the scoresheet against Marc-Andre Fleury. My "value" wing is the Canucks' Vasily Podkolzin at ($14).  

My secondary stacks have thus far been my weak link, but Tristan Jarry ($27) and Jake Guentzel ($31) from the Penguins, and Alexander Ovechkin ($32) and surprise top-line center Lars Eller ($10) from the Caps?  There is a one-game suspension for Kuznetsov, remember….   Last defenseman is a flier on Mark Giordano ($15), playing at home against the unbeaten Stars.

Next week I'll begin listing both the Yahoo and DraftKings values, but they do have different rules, and it forces bettors to change those secondary picks.

Have a great weekend.  @dokhockey