Good day, all! This morning, I woke up ready as can be to sit and watch tonight's slate which I assumed was only a handful of games that I could have going along with March Madness starting today. Nope. 14 games. Believe me, I will be going over this in Looking Ahead tomorrow. Stay hot, NHL.

Slate Preview

Washington Capitals

The Capitals will be going up against the Philadelphia Flyers tonight, which if this game was in Philly I might blink twice, but at home in Washington has my interest. It's not just that home ice is tilting the scale towards the Caps, but it's who could be in net for Philadelphia as our guy Samuel Ersson has now dipped below -10 GSAA in the past month. With that, let's stack some Capitals with my real focus going to the second line or a mix of the second line plus Alex Ovechkin at $8K. I do wish that the second line was priced down a little bit here, but I get Tom Wilson at $5,800 who is top 10 in NHL scoring…which never gets mentioned, and then if I want to add Dylan Strome at $5,700 that's fine. I watched the first two periods of the Capitals game the other night against Detroit, and it was a wonderful watch. No whistles, not too many holds that stopped play, and was a nice relief from the dump and chase hockey I watched all Sunday evening going from the Islanders game to the Canucks. For me in single-entry and someone who is up to their eyes in work while also trying to pay even a morsel of attention to college hoops, I can see myself stacking the Capitals along with another club we'll get to in a moment, then closing DraftKings and letting nature take its course.

Utah Hockey Club

Utah might be my dance partner with another stack on this slate tonight, and I had real interest in them on Tuesday as well but stayed away. That game against the Oilers got off the rails, but coming into that game, Utah had excellent Cori numbers at all strengths over the last 10 games and thought they could get on the board more than they did (one goal). I went back and looked and what killed Utah on Tuesday was the high danger chances and goals in front of the net, granted that'll sink most clubs, but it was un-Utah-like for a club that although does give up their fair share of goals, limits shots and shot opportunity. I'm playing this as putting my palms up, this was after all against the Oilers. Tonight, Utah will be on home ice against a Buffalo Sabres club that over the past month is third-worst by high danger goals for and fifth worst in high danger shooting percentage. With all that said, I like Utah in this spot, the only issues that I'm running into are if they change up their lines from getting throttled the other night, and for a club that got a beat down, their prices didn't drop nearly as much as I would have wanted them to. Clayton Keller is the same price ($7K), Dylan Guenther is only down $100 to $6,400, Logan Cooley only down $100 to $5,400, and Barrett Hayton's price hasn't moved from $5,100. I don't have preference with either of the top two lines, so to me this is a situation that you could mix-and-match and get away just fine in the end. This is a good spot for a club that will be looking to rebound and keep their playoff hopes alive.  

Vegas Golden Knights

Vegas hasn't been on home ice since March 9^th…now is our time. Vegas at home always gets my consideration and going up against this Boston Bruins team is a great matchup for them. I did well with Vegas a couple weeks back full stacking the top line which meant including Tanner Pearson, but I'm not doing that tonight as Ivan Barbashev up at the top line either will move down, or just randomly not play for reasons unknown to us like he did in Pittsburgh last week. That's along with the fact that he's shot the puck under two times per game since early February. With that, it's two-man stacks from this club for me, while adding someone off the blue line. If you have the salary to get up to Jack Eichel at $8,200 and pair him with Mark Stone at $6,100 that's fine, I'll never sway you from playing that pair, but what could make for a unique build would be to play the second line and go Tomas Hertl ($6,100), Pavel Dorofeyev ($5,900) and add in Stone back into your mix. I typically don't like leaving off Jack Eichel because he probably leads the league in multi-point games (Just off eye test and stats alone he's got to be top three in that regard) but keeping in Stone makes for a different build and he's a player who's very active on the power play. I can't remember a February or March in recent memory that he's been healthy throughout the duration, so playing him tonight feels like we're on borrowed time. Vegas is on my short list of clubs I'm looking to play in my single-entry tonight and in multi-entry I think they have to be considered.

Defensemen

The top of the board is the usual suspects, Cale Makar (Healthy at $7,700) and Zach Werenski (Also healthy at $7,500). I'll let you guys be the judge of start 'em, sit 'em with those two. Noah Dobson at $6K played great on Sunday at $6K, I feel alright with him at that price before he jumps back up to $6,400-$6,700. Victor Hedman is down at $5,600 which is interesting just off the price-point alone. I can see maybe getting to him, but I'm almost rather use that money to spend up for defensemen on this slate. Mikhail Sergachev at $5,300 is a great play if you're playing Utah or not, just be ready for him to be taken off the scoresheet for a secondary assist for what feels like the 57^th time this season. Adam Fox is still cheap at $5,300 which is a good one-off price for him. Two defensemen that interest me at $5,100 are John Carlson and Noah Hanifin, both are involved in the power play and go well with either team's stack tonight. I can be talked into Lane Hutson at $4,600 going up against the Islanders, and by talked in all you need to say is, "Hey, are you playing Lane Hutson tonight?". I mean, yeah, I'm in for that. Shakir Mukhamadullin for San Jose is cheap at $3,900 and has taken on the role of Sharks block bot. Mario Ferraro hasn't been standing in front of vulcanized rubber nearly as much this season. We all hit our breaking point eventually. Going even cheaper, I like Alex Vlasic at $3,500. When he puts it altogether that price is going to shoot up, just waiting for that to eventually happen.

Goalies

In net, Darcy Kuemper has been awesome lately but is up beyond to what I usually spend on a goaltender at $8,500. If you do have the salary or are starting your build in net, then he makes for a great choice. Adin Hill I really like at $8,300 but not sure if I would lean to Ilya Samsonov if he got the start over Hill, as Hill has been the better of the two in the last 10 starts. Ilya Sorokin at $8K is fine, he'll make the saves but worry about earning the win. I don't hate the idea of Kevin Lankinen up against St. Louis. As crazy as it sounds, that Blues club has been generating a very good amount of offense and if I'm chasing volume, then Lankinen might be my guy in net for my single-entry. Connor Hellebuyck is again down below $8K…just throwing that out there, and Sam Montembeault is still at $7,400 for the fourth game in a row. For the first time all season, I actually don't mind this goaltending slate. It only took us until March on a 14 game slate to reach this point but we did it and we did it together.

Good luck tonight everybody!  

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