Below is a breakdown of Thursday's two-game NHL DFS slate followed by example lineups. 

Teams to Target

With just 2 games tonight, you’re going to have a lot of stars and scrubs. Of the 4 teams(Calgary, Dallas, The Islanders, and Washington), Washington has the players with the highest upside, with Ovechkin, Kuznetsov, and Carlson respectively. I expect Ovechkin to be the most used player on tonight’s slate, and for good reason given his play in the last game against the Islanders. What does this mean to you? In cash games, you should ensure you have Ovechkin in your lineup. By not playing him you risk. 60% of the field using him and him having a big night. In GPP, you might want to go contrarian and take the Islanders with Barzal, and Lee instead, and use the money differently. When looking at the Islanders you should take a look at JP Pageau. He has the most points for the Islanders over the last 3 games and is shooting enough to give you some point floor. If you’re playing on FanDuel, he could also get you some short-handed points. When we look at Calgary and Dallas, their players are less clear. Klingberg should be considered in all lineups for your defence spots. He has 6 points in these last 3 games, Heiskanen can also provide value. If we look at their forwards on the Flames, Sam Bennett continues to shoot and is a nice value, and you can also look at Michael Backlund, Johnny Gaudreau, and Sean Monahan at their prospective prices. Dallas doesn’t have a forward who has produced at a point per game pace, but Radulov and Pavelski have been players who have produced in big games in the past, so consider taking a flyer on them.

Value Plays

Sam Bennett (3,800-DK, 4,300 FD)  - Bennett has been playing over his head the last few games, and his price is starting to rise, but he is still a really nice value, as long as he keeps shooting the puck. He is going to be a better play on DraftKings, than FanDuel, as he won’t see any power-play time.

Jakob Vrana (4,900 DK, 4,200 FD) - The shot volume is on the rise for Vrana, and he is due to score. If he breaks out, he could offer some nice differentiation in your GPP contests tonight.

John Klingberg (5,400-DK, 5,800 FD) - Klingberg leads all defencemen over the last 3 games in shots and points, and there is little reason to expect that those trends would end tonight. He should be considered in all GPP and cash games.

Goalies

When it comes to goalies tonight, it is largely going to be about picking the winners. From a systems perspective, Khudobin, and Varlamov should be the safer of the two goalies, which is great for cash games. I would lean toward Khudobin, over Varlamov because of the firepower of the Capitals. If you’re looking at GPP, I would have no issues going with Talbot. The Stars don’t always score a lot of goals, and it wouldn’t be a surprise to see the Flames push this series to 7.