Howdy, folks. And a Happy Monday to ya. I’m back home after a weekend expedition down to Texas, which was a success on all counts. You never asked, but my speech did go pretty well, especially given my nerves beforehand. It also helped that the only other speechgivers – a couple of bridesmaids – pretty clearly decided to outsource their speech to an AI chatbot. Life is a rich tapestry, and yet some people make the lazy-ass decision to instead let Anthropic tell them how they should feel about their own sister. Shit sucks, if you ask me.
Anyway, there’s hockey tonight. 4 games on the board, so ownership should be fairly condensed in a few spots. We don’t have to mess with things like the Oilers or Avs, which is also nice.
Let us dive in.
Top NHL DFS Stacks for Monday
- DAL1 (Johnston/Rantanen/Steel)
- DAL2 (Hintz/Robertson/Benn)
- SJ1 (Celebrini/Smith/Marchment)
- PIT1 (Crosby/Rakell/Robertson)
- PIT2 (Novak/Chinakhov/Malkin)
- PIT3 (Kindel/Kuzmenko/Koivunen)
- WPG1 (Scheifele/Perfetti/Connor)
- BOS1 (Lindholm/Pastrnak/Peterka)
- OTT2 (Cozens/Eklund/Zetterlund)
- OTT1 (Stutzle/Batherson/Foegele)
- TB1 (Point/Goncalves/Kucherov)
- TB2 (Cirelli/Hagel/Guentzel)
Looks like tonight’s Big Decision Point is whether you play the Dallas chalk at San Jose. The Stars have a whopping one goal across two games to this point, but that doesn’t really mean anything. Feels fairly safe to assume the chalkiest combination will be some mix of PP1 (Hintz/Johnston/Robertson/Rantanen/Heiskanen).
Yaroslav Askarov was fucking horrendous last season between the pipes, and the Sharks struggled in 4-on-5s. They were 26th in the league last year on the PK. Dallas was super-elite with a man advantage. They scored on nearly 29% of their power plays. League average is closer to 21%. Hintz/Robertson/Rantanen/Heiskanen feels like the obvious standout 4-man here. The main case against it is the ownership and that hockey is, of course, volatile. Playing the ES lines – including Sam Steel or Jamie Benn – is a way to potentially lower your product ownership while still eating some of this chalk.
The lines are pretty affordable, which helps. DAL1 is only $15,400 and L2 is $14,800.
I was a constant Pro-Lightning Drum Beater last season, and they did me wrong just about every goddamned time. But the numbers are the numbers, and I’m a slave to the numbers. The lines are a little different to begin this season, though. We have Nikita Kucherov on L1 with Gage Goncalves and Brayden Point, with Brandon Hagel and Jake Guentzel flanking Anthony Cirelli on L2.
Both of these lines fucking crushed last year. Cirelli/Hagel/Guentzel averaged 3.68 xG/60, while Point/Kucherov/Goncalves was at 3.73. The Cirelli/Kucherov/Hagel line was the one last year that really ate (4.32), but, hey, they’ve changed it up.
The Flyers are 0-3 and have allowed at least 3 goals in each game so far, though their overall numbers are a bit skewed by the 7 they coughed up to the Pens on opening night. Last year, Philly only allowed 2.2 xGA/60, the second-best mark on this slate. I assume they’ll figure it out eventually, but the Lightning have so much firepower that the improvement may not arrive this evening.
While the matchup on paper is better for Dallas, I’d probably just play the slightly lower-owned Lightning over them straight-up. We do live in the world of a salary cap, however, and you’re paying about $17,000 total for each of the top two lines. There’s enough value to make it work, and the Stars are cheap enough that you can play a 4/3 DAL/TB very easily.
The priciest individual skater on the slate is the $8,500 Macklin Celebrini on the other side of the Dallas matchup. Guessing the field will play him as a one-off more than they’ll stack him with his friends. I suppose my favorite way to play the Sharks would be a PP combination (Celebrini/Smith/Wennberg or something), but not a great spot here.
The Penguins will hit the road to face the Connor Hellebuyck-less Jets. The replacement netminder – The Immortal Clay Stevenson – has 4 career games under his belt, and the results are not great with Winnipeg conceding 3.17 xGA/60 so far. Pittsburgh has piled up 13 goals in their first 2 games, as well.
Crosby/Robertson/Rakell looks great so far, which I guess isn’t a huge surprise with the success Crosby/Rakell had last year with Bryan Rust. Robertson is still only $3,400, so $16,400 for L1 isn’t egregious. You know I’m into PIT2 (Novak/Malkin/Chinakhov) after their bodacious 3.66 xG/60 number last year. Ben Kindel is $3,500 and will play on PP1, so he’ll be a popular throw-in for PIT stacks. If you need a full punt, Andrei Kuzmenko (whose father was recently eaten by a bear) is $3,500 and has some Kindel correlation on PIT3.
Should note the Penguins are starting a rookie netminder (Sergei Murashov). WPG1 is the most expensive line on the slate ($19,300), and I don’t think they’ll garner massive ownership despite averaging a stellar 4.11 xG in a tiny sample this season. You can play them alongside DAL2 pretty easily, if you’re so inclined.
Jeremy Swayman looks like one of the slate’s chalkier goalies against Ottawa. I think it’s fine – Swayman is great – and the Senators are a little less sexy without Brady Tkachuk there anymore. There’s not much history to go on here with Tkachuk gone and Ridly Greig suspended. The case here is really just leverage, plus the lines aren’t too expensive. I kinda like a PP1 combination of Stuetzle/Cozens/Batherson/Eklund with Thomas Chabot tacked on if you want that angle.
You can do the Hampus Lindholm Thing again since he’s still just $3,700 and QBing PP1 for Boston. Zacha/Pastrnak/Peterka/Lindholm comes together pretty easily. Not my favorite way to play this slate given Ottawa’s defensive prowess from last year, but the absences of Zub and Sanderson weaken them a bit.
Stack Rankings
- DAL1
- TB2
- TB1
- DAL2
- PIT1
- WPG1
- PIT2
- BOS1
- OTT PP1
- SJ PP1
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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