DFS Saturday: Washington to Win Big Against Nashville

Andrew Santillo

2025-01-11

Good morning DFS squad! I could not have been more confident in my lineup last night. I had a mix of Capitals along with Dylan Larkin and Lucas Raymond. I mean, what's so fun about cashing anyways?  

Today is a new slate, and there's a lot of different directions you could go in here to get into the money, as there's elite lines scattered all over tonight.

Slate Preview

Vancouver versus Toronto

Stop me if you've heard this before, but the Canucks don't look right at all right now and are coming off a 2-0 shutout loss to the Hurricanes. Good news for DFS folks out there and that's that hardly anyone out there in tournaments is usually on them. The problem is where would you want to stack if you're playing Vancouver? As far as stacking, I'm not sure if I'm playing Vancouver that's how I would approach it, but maybe take a one-off here or there. Have room for Conor Garland at $5,300? Sure, go for it. Looking for a real cheap winger and think Jonathan Lekkerimaki is good like I do (have some stock), throw him in at $2,700 and go about your day. If you were to stack here though, young third-string goalie Dennis Hildeby is starting for the Leafs tonight. It's something small here, but it's at least something. For me, I'm probably off Vancouver here tonight, but a play to get a unique build is what would draw me to them.

For Toronto here, Vancouver looks disheveled coming into the second game of a back-to-back, and Toronto's top line has been playing excellent in their last ten games. Better yet, Auston Matthews is down in salary to where he was earlier in the week at $9,300, so you can add him to a top line stack with Mitch Marner ($7,700) and Matthew Knies ($4,400). Knies here is interesting because in Toronto's last game out, they went to a five-forward power play, meaning that this top line could be fully correlated at times if Toronto sticks with that formation on the man advantage. Normally when I stack Toronto's top line, I like to get something from their depth lines as well, but tonight I don't hate dropping down to Toronto's second line for a stack here as John Tavares ($7,100) scored his 20th goal earlier in the week and is active on the power play and William Nylander ($7,600), should have about three breakaway chances tonight. Seriously, how is he off to the races at least twice a game and gets denied? In my single entry tonight I have the Leafs on a short list of teams that I'm considering playing, and I don't think I'll be alone on that.

Washington versus Nashville

Washington lost in overtime last night in Montreal, and for some reason in my memory I have an image of the Capitals steamrolling the Habs at the Bell Centre in the past. Did I see that in a dream or something? Regardless, the Capitals have only lost back-to-back games twice this season and they are arguably playing a much worse team tonight in the Nashville Predators. It would be a pricier three-man, but I don't mind going say Alex Ovechkin ($8,400), Dylan Strome ($6K), and Jakob Chychrun ($5,800) and building around some sort of stack like that. Maybe throw in Connor McMichael as well if you have the salary. It's up to how much exposure that you want on the Capitals side. Washington juggled their lines towards the end of the game last night, but keep in mind that either of the top two lines are in play and that if you're rostering Alex Ovechkin that he skates on both powerplays. In my single-entry build, this is another line I'm considering against this Nashville team.

Alright. I guess we have to do it. Nashville. To be fair, earlier in the week you needed the Hawks second line to win in tournaments, so anything can happen. I will say that I'm off the Predators tonight. Maybe playing only twice this week helps this club, but I just don't feel the need to roster anything from this club with just how many good lines that will be in action tonight. If they come up in an optimizer for 20 lineups, I guess that's fine. In one-to-three, I'm out.  
 
NY Rangers versus Vegas

During the week, I played the Rangers top line against Dallas and was surprisingly happy with the results. What drew me to them was that this line of Artemi Panarin ($7,500), Vincent Trocheck ($5,500) and Alexis Lafreniere ($4,600) were all down in price but are a fully correlated top line that's going to play big minutes as the fourth line for the Rangers doesn't see much ice on some nights. I might be going right back here. As much as I hate stacking against Vegas at home. I'm not looking for an outright 4-0 win like the Islanders put up the other night (though that would be nice is if I'm playing the Rangers). If this top line gets on the scoresheet with a shot bonus, you might lap a good amount of your tournament. I like this Rangers top line and only this Rangers top line here tonight. The question is if I want them in my build. At the end of the day, it is still the Rangers but laying out what this top line can bring to a lineup has me at the very least interested.

As for Vegas, they were a popular play at home the other night against the Islanders, but once that Tomas Hertl goal was called back in the first period, it was all New York. I'm fine with going to Vegas here as maybe you can sneak in Ivan Barbashev ($4K) if he returns tonight from injury with the Vegas top line with Jack Eichel ($9,300) and Mark Stone ($7,300). This may be a matter of waiting to see when warmups come just who is on the ice, but you can save yourself a little money and swap out Barbashev if he's out of the lineup for Pavel Dorofeyev if you want to stay with Vegas players in your build. I don't hate just a Mark Stone one-off here if you have a line you like in another game more but want to get to some Vegas, as Stone is extremely active on the Golden Knights power play. The Rangers do have one of the better PKs on the board, but if I'm picking anyone from this Knights team to one off, it would be Stone based off his price.

Defensemen

For defensemen, my ceiling would only be about as high as John Carlson at $6K, but odds are I end up a little cheaper in that game with Jakob Chychrun at $5,800. Dougie Hamilton is fine at $5,900 if you're staking New Jersey and has hovered around that price now for a couple weeks now. I don't mind Colton Parayko at $5,200 and scrolling down below him, but you have Brandt Clarke and Alex Pietrangelo both at $5K and each are playable tonight. Jackson LaCombe for Anaheim is at $4,200 and has points in his last five games and will be going up against a Flyers team that takes a decent number of calls, so it might not be a bad spot for him based on power play alone. For the cheaper d-men here, Ian Cole at $3,500 is alright and Kaiden Guhle has a point in each game and like his price at $3,400.

Goalies

In net here, I might just plug in Logan Thompson and call it a day at $7,600. I don't really have much interest in anything more expensive than him here today and out of the pair of Caps goaltenders, I like Thompson more and is in a good matchup tonight. Connor Hellebuyck is $7,500 at home, I don't that it's Colorado I love this spot here as well. Igor Shesterkin in a Rangers stack here tonight is alright. I'm not sure if I'd pair him with anything on the New York blueline, but I'm fine with going to him. The lowest here I would go would be to either Anaheim goaltender at $7,300. To be fair, I have yet to play either Lukas Dostal or John Gibson in a tournament, and I'm not sure that I'm ready to handle that fire.

Good luck tonight everybody!  

For continued fantasy news and notes, follow me on Twitter @ndySanz.

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UPCOMING GAMES

Apr 04 - 19:04 DET vs CAR
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Apr 04 - 19:04 NYI vs MIN

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