Good morning, all! Well, that sure was a fun deadline day, wasn't it? DFS is going to be a little strange this morning because we won't have full confirmation as to who is/is not in the lineup, so you'll have to be a little cautious when building your lineup around some of these clubs. A little buyer beware as well. Say that you want to play Mikko Rantanen, and that's fine if you do, but just be prepared for him to be an extremely popular play. I think back to the season where Taylor Hall was traded from New Jersey to Arizona, that next game in the lineup he was one of the most popular plays on that slate.
Slate Preview:
Colorado
I mean, who doesn't love the Avalanche on most nights, right? I watched the Toronto game on Monday versus San Jose when the Leafs fell flat. Watched the Toronto game on Wednesday against Vegas when the Leafs got absolutely steamrolled. I'm just saying here that trends are my friends, so give me the Avalanche tonight regardless of price. Nathan MacKinnon ($9,200), Martin Necas ($6,600), and Cale Makar ($7,600) – I'm all there tonight. Odds are the Leafs may be going with Anthony Stolarz back in net as well, so we either see Stolarz coming back from missing time or Joseph Woll who got five goals hung on him against the Knights. Granted, Stolarz did see sometime in net against the Knights (it went that bad), but I like the Avalanche on home ice tonight.
Los Angeles
This very same game took place the other night and it was…well, I fell asleep early. Not much action going on in a game that I had interest in the Blues second line. Tonight, I'm seriously looking at the Kings in my single-entry build. The Kings have the best home record in the NHL and will be going up against a Blues club that played last night, so this is a time to where I want to pick on this matchup, and if I'm going anywhere here it would be that top line wingers of Kevin Fiala ($7,100) and Alex Laferriere ($4,200). I don't even mind going with adding on Adrian Kempe ($6,800) as well and taking a stab on Andrei Kuzmenko ($6,400).
I hesitate on the third line, only because that's going to be the group that odds are will have to go out and stop a Blues top line that has been alright the past couple weeks, so I would really only be going to the top-six here. For the centers on this club, I can see myself getting my C's elsewhere on this slate. As good as Quinton Byfield has been, I may leave him off skating on the second power-play unit, while Anze Kopitar's shot rate is down. Although Kopitar is the Kings' top power-play center, St. Louis doesn't draw enough penalties to warrant me going to the man advantage in this one.
NY Islanders
This isn't as much an Islanders smash play as it is the Sharks may get smashed one. Really, I know they won in Toronto on Monday but looked abysmal against Colorado. I get it, Colorado does that to a lot of teams, but for me I'm leaning more that New York can get on the board here early, and if that's the case than I'll take pieces of the top line and try and mix them into a stack. Even one-offs or taking two off the top line are okay. Bo Horvat at $7K is fine for the matchups he'll likely get, while Kyle Palmieri at $6,300 and Anders Lee at $5,600 to pair him with are fine if you want to take a three-forward approach to this team. I haven't built just yet, but I'm considering New York as a pivot on this slate.
Defensemen:
Cale Makar top of the board at $7,600, cheaper than the $8,200 he was at the other night. I'm considering paying up a little bit for at least one defenseman on this slate and if I'm going to do so, then maybe going all the way to the top is the path I'll take. Noah Dobson below him at $6,700 is fine as a solo or with an Islanders pair, as he'll be in a great spot tonight. If I don't go to the top, I may live more in the mid-range as Lane Hutson is a great option at $4,200, the block machine Mario Ferraro at $4,200, and Alex Vlasic for the Hawks at $4K is fine. For cheaper options, I'm good with Cody Ceci at $3,500 and Cam Fowler at $3,300.
Goalies:
For me, the top of my spending limit would be Dustin Wolf at $7,900. Decent matchup against Montreal and should see an alright amount of volume to go along with it. Either goaltender in the Edmonton/Dallas game is fine in my book, though for Edmonton I lean more Stuart Skinner coming off a solid outing against the Habs. If I'm not playing Los Angeles (unlikely, but no bad ideas in a groupthink), then Joel Hofer is fine at $7,200. All the way down at the bottom we have Jakub Dobes who is going to be a popular play as he'll be the one option to turn to with the number of expensive lines on the slate.
Good luck tonight everybody!
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