Hello, friends. The NHL’s opening night was a fun one, especially if you played Evan Bouchard and Vasily Podkolzin along with some Canucks. Connor McDavid on #FraudWatch? We’ll have to see.
I expected the league to follow up their lighter 5-game opener with a bigger Wednesday slate, but I guess only the NBA does that, as we’re looking at a tiny 3-gamer tonight instead. On smaller slates I’m more open to onslaught stacks with 4-6 skaters from a team, while I also think pairing your netminder with your stack is a logical approach. If your stack really hits, that team is probably winning. Unless, of course, you’re the Oilers.
The Maple Leafs will play the latter half of a back-to-back tonight after losing to the Habs yesterday, so we at least have an idea of what one of these teams is doing with its lines. Even that’s gonna be volatile with the Leafs incorporating several new pieces, but we’ll do our darnedest nevertheless.
Best NHL DFS Stacks for Wednesday
- COL1 (MacKinnon/Necas/Lehkonen)
- PHI1 (Zegras/Martone/Tippett)
- TOR1 (Matthews/Marchenko/Roslovic)
- TOR2 (Tavares/McKenna/Nylander)
- COL2 (Nelson/Landeskog/Kadri)
- PIT1 (Crosby/Rakell/Robertson)
- PIT2 (Novak/Chinakhov/Malkin)
- LAK1 (Byfield/Panarin/Kempe)
- PHI2 (Dvorak/Foerster/Konecny)
- PHI3 (Cates/Bump/Michkov)
I’ve decided I’m not gonna list power play units up there independently. I’ll point out when I like a PP stack specifically in the #content instead.
The Avs are on the slate, so there’s your first decision point. This was the most dynamic offense in hockey last season (regular season, at least), averaging 3.02 xG/60. They’re at home here against a slow, gross Kings team that yielded just 2.19 xG/60 last year, 3rd-best in the league.
Colorado’s power play was famously unproductive last season – which never made any sense at all given their personnel. The Kings – while solid defensively – were absolutely ghastly (30th) on the penalty kill. LA also committed the 5th-fewest penalties. So, they weren’t penalized often, but they were terrible when they were a man down, and they were respectable at even strength. The Avs were atrocious with a man advantage.
There’s no real reason to expect Colorado to struggle in those situations again. This will be the highest-owned stack on the slate, and it’s not a great spot overall, so there’s your case for the fade. The case against the fade is that they can score 9 goals. Nathan MacKinnon will be the chalkiest player on the slate regardless of stacks. The catch is that COL1 is pricey ($19,800), without even factoring in the $7,000 Cale Makar.
One way to make the stack cheaper is to play TJ Hughes, a $3,400 (legit) prospect who’s going to play netfront on PP1. He’ll likely be on the third line at even strength, but many COL stacks out there will jam in Hughes for the salary relief. MacKinnon/Necas/Hughes/Makar is a fun way to stack the Avs…but it’ll cost you $25,400. There’s a chance it’ll be a little contrarian to play the regular L1 (MacKinnon/Necas/Lehkonen) without Makar or Hughes. This was the most prolific line in the NHL last year (3.74 xG/60).
The lines with Nazem Kadri weren’t great last year after he came back in a trade, but he’ll be promoted to L2 this year to replace Val Nichushkin alongside Brock Nelson and Gabe Landeskog. Nelson/Landeskog/Nichushkin (3.54 xG/60) also happened to be mega-awesome last year. I wouldn’t say $15,300 for a second line is necessarily cheap, but you can tack on MacKinnon or Makar as one-offs and still get decent exposure to the team with the highest total on the board.
Gonna talk about the Flyers for a while. Philadelphia limited high-danger chances well last season. Pittsburgh did not. The Penguins finished 17th in xGA/60, and Arturs Silovs – fresh off of a dreadful season – is scheduled to start in net tonight.
I won’t say the Flyers were a great offensive team last season, because that would be a lie, but this team is insanely cheap. The top line comes in at just $16,000. They’re splitting up the Zegras/Dvorak/Konecny L1 that did pretty well last year. Tonight, it’s projected to be Zegras/Tippett/Martone on the top line. Porter Martone is one of the best young prospects in the sport, and he played well after a late call-up to Philly last season.
We don’t have a ton of numbers off which to go, and I suspect the Flyers will be somewhat chalky, but I’m not seeing much to dislike about the situation. L2 (Dvorak/Foerster/Konecny) and L3 (Cates/Bump/Michkov) are even cheaper. Michkov and Foerster should line up with Zegras and Martone on PP1. Jamie Drysdale – also on PP1 – is a very solid D value at $3,700.
I mentioned the Flyers’ defensive success last year, so I’m not too bullish on Pittsburgh, but there’s one thing I do quite like. Bryan Rust is on IR so Nicholas Robertson looks primed to join the top line next to Sidney Crosby and Rickard Rakell. Robertson is a wee $3,200, but the $16,300 total salary is still higher than you’re paying for any Philly line.
If I’m doing anything with the Pens, it’s playing PIT2 (Novak/Chinakhov/Malkin), a line that averaged a robust 3.66 xG/60 a season ago. It’s also just $13,500, and Novak and Chinakhov will play on PP1 with Crosby, Rakell, and Erik Karlsson. You can pretty easily jam in PIT2 with a COL PP combination.
Toronto mustered 2 goals last night – both by William Nylander – but there were positive signs despite the defeat. The new-look top line (Matthews/Marchenko/Roslovic) averaged a 4.69 xG/60! It’s a sample of 12.9 minutes and completely unsustainable, but I said the signs were positive, and that’s a sign, not a firm indicator. We take signs with grains of salt. I don’t know about you, but I’m always grabbing grains of salt at any given opportunity.
They’ll face the Islanders tonight. New York yielded 2.68 xGA/60 last year, the third-worst mark in hockey. I doubt fatigue will be a huge factor in the second game of the season – even on a B2B. The issue is the salary you have to dump into TOR1 ($17,900) and TOR2 ($18,800). Nylander was great, and John Tavares supplied an assist. Gavin McKenna – the top-ranked prospect in the NHL – sucked. He was at times bumped down to L3 last night with Easton Cowan getting the occasional promotion to L2, so there’s some fluidity here. Cowan is a rookie getting thrown right into the fire, so the struggles are understandable. For now, he’s probably the one you’re fading if you’re trying to stack the Leafs.
The Avs were a juggernaut offensively last year, but they’re also a team that will allow some goals. The Kings are replacing the retired Anze Kopitar with Quinton Byfield on the top line next to Adrian Kempe and Artemi Panarin. Kopitar/Kempe/Panarin did 3.00 xG/60 in limited duty last year. Adding Byfield should only strengthen that line, in theory. A $5,000 Brandt Clarke is an easy fourth to add on.
Stack Rankings
- COL1
- PIT2
- PHI1
- PHI2
- TOR1
- COL2
- PHI3
- LAK1
- TOR2
- PIT1
Noah Simpson is a New England-based DFS writer who has spent the better part of a decade obsessing over MLB DFS. He got his start playing DFS recreationally before realizing he was spending more time building spreadsheets than actually watching games, and decided to make it official. At DFSBuild, Noah covers MLB DFS strategy with a focus on finding edges that casual players overlook. When he’s not staring at Statcast data, he’s somewhere on a hiking trail in Maine with his two dogs, Sandboy and Johnner, who are undefeated at ignoring his lineup advice, because they are dogs. They don’t have the cognitive or motor skills required to operate a computer, let alone process complex theories and information.
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