Good day to all my DFS peps out there! Yesterday's slate…many (me) were calling it the most Monday slate of all-time. Seattle versus Calgary was built for Monday night. Or Wednesday at like 9 a.m. central on Cartoon Network. Either way, it was a close the laptop early night for your boy. I roster Igor Shesterkin in my main league and turned that game on right as he's being helped off the ice and then checked my DFS lineup where I had no Capitals…which consequently meant no moneys. These nights happen.  

I do like this slate tonight, so much so that you guys are getting a bonus game on the slate preview. It's not behind a paywall either! I have a busy day at work too which only means that it's NHL stuffs on one screen and answering emails on the other. It ain't easy living the dream, my friends.

Slate Preview

Philadelphia Flyers

On slates where I like Philadelphia, the secret often gets out, and I'm stuck battling with .500 of my closest buds who also are seeing the same thing that I am. Still, we're all pals here on Dobber DFS, I won't say anything if you guys don't. I like Philadelphia here quite a bit and it's more so that I want to go up against Anaheim on the second leg of a road back-to-back. A couple weeks back, I was pretty encouraged by what I was seeing on the ice from the Ducks, but as we moved into the later parts of December and into the New Year, I've looked at potentially targeting against them and that starts with their goaltending. In the last month, both Lukas Dostal and Petr Mrazek are bottom five in the NHL in goals saved above average and goals saved above expected. Add that to a Ducks team that, while I like they allow their top lines to create, they're not as structured as other clubs in the NHL. I'll take a Philly top line of Christian Dvorak ($4,100) – Trevor Zegras ($5,900) – Travis Konecny ($5,700), that unless something changes at skate this morning, will be fully correlated in what I think is a good matchup. In single-entry or above I could see getting to them in your lineup, but this would be a spot where I don't think I'd take a defenseman and just stick with the forwards.

Colorado Avalanche

Big shock here, cashed the other night playing the Avalanche…the Carolina game, not the Florida one, for context. The Avalanche have now taken a loss in regulation three times on the season and that took until January 4^th. The team closest to them that took the longest time to lose four times in regulation…got to go all the way back to November 6^th, when Vegas lost their fourth. I'm not sure what I want from the Avalanche but if I'm playing more than one lineup, I'll want to add something depending on the price of my other stacks. I'm all good with playing say a Brock Nelson ($5,500) – Valeri Nichushkin ($5,200) two-man or if you wanted to stack Colorado's top-line you could pair them with San Jose's second line or parts of Toronto's top line and still have enough salary to add in say Ilya Sorokin in net. I'm not making the Avalanche a priority in single-entry, but in multiple I would want to have shares of some of them.

New York Islanders

This morning while I was making my double-shot espresso, I thought to myself that it's a large slate, with plenty of stellar teams on the board in good spots. There's no way we go back to the Islanders again…do we? I'm here to say yes, we do. This team has next to no depth but on Sunday, was one point from the lead in the Metro division. You guys, what if the Islanders are good? They're going to be going up against a New Jersey club that has a PK% of less than 70% in the last month of the season and that has me interested in playing the Isles top line. While Anders Lee doesn't go out on the top power play unit with Mathew Barzal and Emil Heineman, you could always add in Calum Ritchie into that group for a cheaper addition, as he has three goals and one assist in his last ten games. I like this slate too much to say I'm playing single-entry but typically go that route and if it were me with one lineup tonight, I'd say the Islanders would be a filler stack for me. The power play spot is too good for me to want to completely overlook, so if you happen to get to some Islanders in your mix or if you use an optimizer, I'm fine with the play.

Boston Bruins

Every now and again I'll get a comment or message about not liking the Bruins and I don't know where that came from? Would someone who doesn't like the B's have a black and gold David Pastrnak Bauer Tracer next to their desk at home? Seriously, I do. It weirdly sits below a Montreal Canadiens pennant from the 1950's. In thinking on it, I probably should have put those two things on opposite ends of the home office, but oh well. There are only a couple teams as a fan I'd say I'd lean against, and Boston isn't one of them and they're certainly not one on this slate tonight going up against the Kraken on the road. Seattle has not been great on the penalty kill in the past month and have been getting bailed out by goaltending at times, so I have interest in Boston. I do think this could be a spot that Boston gets slightly overlooked and it's been a while for me since I put together some sort of Bruins powerplay stack. I do somewhat worry that this is the last game of a west coast swing for the B's, but sometimes that works in the favor of the club that is about to fly home. This might be a club I target once they're back on home ice later in the week, but for now I'll ride with them. For me, I'd lean the Bruins second line, but if you did want to create a power play stack then I think that's in play for tonight.

Defense

Got $8,800 lying around looking for someone to spend it on? If so, Zach Werenski is a great place to put that money as he has been excellent in the past four weeks of the season. Well, he's been great all season, you guys get the idea here. For me, I love this slate for middle priced or cheaper defensemen, starting with Josh Morrissey at $5,500. Even though I don't think I'll be on Winnipeg tonight, I don't mind Morrissey in this spot. Noah Hanifin is going to play plenty of minutes tonight and did so last game out as well in one of the wildest endings to a hockey game this season. Aaron Ekblad is also going to play plenty sitting at $4,500, I don't mind him at all on tonight's slate. I'm fine going with Brent Burns at $3,500 or for a cheaper option, his teammate Sam Malinskiat $2,800 is a good option.

Goalies

Top of the board is Connor Ingram…yeah, that's gonna be a pass here at $8,400. Ingram and I had some good times when I would pair him with Nashville's third line back in the day but not tonight…if anyone remembers that Nick Bonino – Craig Smith – Rocco Grimaldi line in DFS back in the day then you "know ball" as the kids say. If you're not playing Boston I'm fine with Seattle in net, but for me I'll probably be spending down to Connor Hellebuyck at $7,600 or Joseph Woll at $7,500.

That's it for now, best of luck tonight everybody!  

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