DFS Saturday: Look to the Leafs Even Without Matthews

Andrew Santillo

2024-11-09

Good morning to all the DFS'ers out there on this lovely Saturday morning! We got a full slate of games today, so let's break down some decent spots tonight. For this slate, I'm only focusing on the main slate that starts at 7 pm ET. All those playing the full day, godspeed.  

Slate Preview

Montreal vs Toronto
Auston Matthews is out again, so look toward bargain options Max Domi ($3,100) and Matthew Knies ($3,800) to both play prominent roles in the top 6 on a line with Mitch Marner ($6,600). There is zero, and I mean nada ting, that worries me over on the Montreal side defensively. As well, the John Tavares ($6,600) second line has been excellent with an expected goals for per 60 of 4.6. Even with this line not being fully correlated, I could see a road to full stack as a main stack if you want to go with a three-forward build and pair your defenseman elsewhere.

As for Montreal, I'm not completely ex'ing this team out on this large slate. I can't say I'm going to be itching to play anything of the top six, but it's the Montreal depth that I could have some interest in, especially if my lineup starts to really get up there in price. The way I would go here would be take wingers off the third line and maybe two-man Brendan Gallagher ($3,100) and Josh Anderson ($2,600). I'd only really want to get to these two if my lineup does feature a lot of expensive options, but this could be a spot to find close to min-priced forwards that might impact the slate as you're going to find.   

Columbus vs Los Angeles
Ya know what, sometimes you look at a chalk spot and think that you might need to build your lineup differently, as everyone might be on the team in a smash spot. Tonight though, I might dish myself up some Kings and even go back for seconds playing the Jackets at home. If the Kings decide to run a first line of Kevin Fiala ($6,200), Anze Kopitar ($6,200), and Adrian Kempe ($6,000) then I might just be in tournaments tonight full stacking some Kings. I played this team this week on the second leg of a back-to-back in Minnesota and they did well for me, so I don't mind going back to them here. This is a Jackets club that just lost on the road to the Sharks and has fallen back a little bit from their higher-scoring offense to start the season.

For Columbus, surprise surprise, if I'm playing anything Columbus it's going to be the top line or nothing. It's a nine-game slate and I can't see myself jamming in a ton of Columbus tonight. If you did though, I think the reason here would be on the power play and pricing. Columbus is going to be cheaper than most of the top stacks tonight, and this is a Kings club with a bottom five PK% in the NHL right now and a bottom five shots on goal on the PK. I have them circled as a maybe for three max, but single entry I might be looking elsewhere.

Carolina vs Colorado
The people's main event! Let's start with Carolina where top of the board for me might be a Sebastian Aho ($7,600) – Andrei Svechnikov ($7,500) two-man. With Carolina, I don't even really mind mixing and matching on these lines, but I do want pieces of the top line in that mix. Seth Jarvis ($5,400) is down $300 to start the week who I don't mind in a Carolina mix, or pieces of that third line for a filler stack with Jordan Martinook at $2,700 and Jordan Staal at $3K. Where I really like this club is on the blueline, which we'll get to here, but if you are three maxing tonight you could have one lineup that is Carolina heavy, and then go about building the other two. If Colorado puts Alexandar Georgiev out in net as well, my interest in stacking the Canes only gets higher.

Moving to the Avalanche and of course Nathan MacKinnon ($9,700) is interesting and pricey. Mikko Rantanen, also interesting and pricey ($8,500). I think the only I'm going to the top line here is if I'm running three lineups with Colorado as my anchor line, and in each other have some combination of fillers. Don't get me wrong, I like the Colorado side here as Pyotr Kochetkov hasn't looked stellar as of late, and this is a Colorado team with the second highest power play percentage right now in the league. I'm having a hard time thinking I'd want anything else but the top line here for Colorado, so just be prepared for a stack to get up there in price quickly.  

Defensemen

The one expensive d-man I have circled here is Moritz Seider at $5,900, he plays heavy minutes for Detroit and going up against a Rangers club that just got smashed by the Sabres. There wasn't much I liked in that game for the Wings outside of the blueline, so I think that Seider makes for a good one-off defenseman. One other decent one-off defensemen are on the other side of that game, and that's Adam Fox who is down to $5,700 from $6,000. As I mentioned earlier, I like a lot of pieces on the Canes blueline here tonight, I don't really mind any one off the top two pairings with Shayne Gostisbehere at $5,300, Brent Burns at $4,200, Jaccob Slavin ($2,900) and Sean Walker ($2,900).

Goalies

For those of us who don't like spending up for goaltending this just isn't our night. Linus Ullmark for Boston is going to see volume and down at $7,100, and all the way at the bottom is Ville Husso ($6,500) who I'm not sure I get to in any of my lineups but might consider it, only to regret that decision later tonight as I close my laptop. Jonathan Quick ($8,000) gets the start against a Red Wings team that has trouble scoring, so he might be worth a look.

Good luck tonight, everybody!  

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

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