Good morning, all! I've been up and down the DFS streets for the past hour or so and here's the conclusion I've come to – there's going to be multiple paths to victory tonight. We still have some of the big dogs on the slate in Tampa Bay, Florida, and Toronto, but I think there might be a few spots to where we can sneak into the cash with the right line.
Slate Preview
Carolina
Carolina played last night beating Detroit 4-2. While I didn't watch that game, I have real interest on this slate because of who they may face in net against Philadelphia tonight: our guy Samuel Ersson. Granted, last game out he wasn't too bad stopping 17 of 20 shots against Tampa Bay, and while I wish this was a home game for Carolina, I am leaning towards possibly rostering them.
I may go back to my strategy with Carolina that I had in December/January and that's to play them with one of their cheaper defensemen, which means picking a line to stack and the answer here is hands down the top line. Jackson Blake ($3,900), Sebastian Aho ($7,200) and Seth Jarvis ($7,400), are going to be fully correlated tonight and if I'm playing one of them, I'm playing all of them. Blake has been interesting because if he's active on the power play than he has real value to us for DFS, as we can only hope he's the beneficiary of any scoring that happens at even strength.
Philadelphia at home isn't terrible defensively, but we're leaning more on going against goaltending, which might not get any better than going against the Flyers tonight.
Ottawa
The Senators have the longest winning streak in the NHL at five games and if the graphic on Sportsnet is true, then two out of three on-air analysts believe that the Senators are going to come out of this game with a regulation win tonight. Okay sure, I might not base my opinion wholly on what the crew predicts, but I don't mind the spot. Anthony Stolarz has looked shaky since coming back and Joseph Woll didn't put together a great string of games either prior to Stolarz returning.
To me, if I'm playing Ottawa I 100% have to have Brady Tkachuk in my mix at $8K and the way I would go about it would be to find another wing to go with him that's on the top power play unit and build around that. I'm leaning Drake Batherson at $5,100, but any direction that you would want to go is fine with me. Depending on what book you look at, this game opened as the highest over/under on the board so if we're predicting out goals than I want a piece of that action. Just hoping that it's not all Toronto one…although for fantasy…nah, this is a DFS show. I'll be trying to fit some Ottawa into my mix on this slate tonight. See you all in the foxhole.
Vancouver
I was looking at the Rangers for this spot, but I watched the Rangers last game out against Minnesota and can't say that I'm in for another slow ride like that. This led me to Vancouver who is interesting because they're going to get the Hawks on the road, which is a big time plus, and while I don't weigh too much on previous matchups, Vancouver is 9-1-0 against the Blackhawks in their last ten matchups.
I watched Vancouver in their overtime win against Calgary on Wednesday. Two things that would worry me coming into this matchup are winning in the dot and penalty kill. These are two things that they should have no issues with playing the Hawks. If this is a two-man game with Elias Pettersson ($6,600) and a defenseman we'll get to here shortly, then that's fine, and if you wanted to add in Brock Boeser at $6,100 or Conor Garland at $5,700, I think that makes some sense as well. I haven't rostered the Canucks in some time now, but the spot is great for them to where I'm having trouble walking away from them in single entry.
Defensemen
So yeah, Quinn Hughes slam dunk at $6,600. I can tell you all right now that I'll have him in my lineup and will look like him just staring off into nothingness if he puts up a low number against the Hawks. Jake Sanderson is also a good play at $6,300, and I don't mind him as a solo or with your Senators stacks. Seth Jones for Florida at $5,700 is alright, as he'll get decent minutes for the Panthers on the road. Jared Spurgeon is a maybe for me at $4,500, I'd really only want to get to him if I'm playing the Wild but if I were to do so, then he makes for a decent addition. While I'm probably aiming in the mid-$4K's and above for defensemen tonight, I don't mind Connor Murphy for cheap at $3,600 or Oliver Ekman-Larsson at that same price.
Goalies
If I were to spend up anywhere tonight it would be to get up to Sergei Bobrovsky at $8,200. Bobrovsky has quietly had a decent last month of play and going into Montreal is a decent matchup for him. Either St. Louis goaltender is alright on this slate, but I just worry about shot volume coming the other way from Minnesota, as the Blues did a decent job of limiting Pittsburgh the other night. Linus Ullmark has burned me so many times already this season at $7,600, but I can see plenty of volume for him. I really like Sam Montembeault down at $7,400 and is at a price point that I can fit plenty of things with him to help my lineup. If you're not playing Vancouver, either Chicago goaltender is fine, but I would spend up for Montembeault in that situation at $300 more.
Good luck tonight everybody!
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