DFS Saturday: Ranger Rampage
Stephen Dotzel
2023-04-22
I know it is said every year, but the Stanley Cup Playoffs truly never disappoint. Following Game 2 for all eight of the series, six of them are square at a game a piece and there's been some great games already with three overtime games and a few comeback wins from teams trailing by multiple goals. Saturday looms large as three of the games on the schedule feature teams looking for that pivotal Game 3 win to take a 2-1 series lead.
Unfortunately for DFS, the 4 pm game was left off the main slate, so we're left with just the three later games. That gives us Toronto at Tampa Bay, New Jersey at New York, and Colorado at Seattle. If we're looking to build one tournament lineup that can get us to the top of the leaderboard, the best strategy is to focus on two of the six teams in action and stack our lineups with players from those teams. It is unlikely all six or even five of the six teams are all going to perform well and score multiple goals, so we want to single out two spots and hope we land on two teams that can score upwards of three or four goals.
Stack #1
I'm not really sure what DraftKings is doing with the Rangers salaries, but if they're trying to bait us in with low prices, well, I'm going to fall for the trap. Through two games, both at the Prudential Center, the Rangers scored ten goals and the quartet of Mika Zibanejad ($6,100), Patrick Kane ($5,700), Chris Kreider ($5,500), and Adam Fox ($5,800) accounted for five goals and 12 assists. Wow! Despite that out-of-this-world production and the Rangers getting the added boost of home ice, the prices on these players remain middle of the pack. I am stacking up all four until the Devils can prove they can stop them, which has not happened yet!
Stack #2
With the Rangers locked in, our second stack needs to have a bit of a value piece in it to make it fit. That's where I'm going to look to the Lightning. With the series headed south to Tampa, I'm going to bank on the combination of the home crowd and their experience in big games paying off. Corey Perry ($2,600) is $100 above the minimum but has a knack for scoring big goals, something he's done in each of the first two games of this series. I'm going to include Mikhail Sergachev ($5,500) in this stack as he should continue to see a huge role with fellow defensemen Victor Hedman and Erik Cernak banged up. After those two, you are left to pick your favorite of the big three of Brayden Point ($7,200), Nikita Kucherov ($7,400), and Steven Stamkos ($6,400). You really can't go wrong with either of the three, but if forced to choose, I will take Kucherov.
Goalie
With a small slate like this I will absolutely include my goalie in with one of my stacks. That means either Igor Shesterkin ($8,300) or Andrei Vasilevskiy ($8,000). The logic behind that is if we want to win a tournament, we are going to need both our stacks to score a few goals. If they score those goals, it means those teams have better chances to win the game which is what we want for our goalie. If our stacks fail, our lineups are not going to do well anyway, so at that point it is unlikely that our decision at goalie makes much of a difference in terms of being able to win a top prize. For tonight's matchups, I will lean Shesterkin with my lineup.
Be sure to follow me on Twitter @SteveDotzel so you can follow my "DFS-NHL" list which is comprised of dozens of team accounts and beat writers providing important updates throughout the day. Also, give a look to our tools at DFS Central to see who our formulas are liking for this slate. Best of luck with your lineups!