Below are breakdowns of each of Tuesday evening’s NHL games. Optimal Lineups for tonight’s 3-game slate will be posted this afternoon. Make sure to check back then.
Vegas Golden Knights at New York Rangers
Vegas lost only its second game of the season last night, and their record miraculously sits at 8-2. It’s miraculous because they’ve not been a good possession team with the seventh worst Corsi For percentage (percentage of shot attempts taken between them and their opponents). Their regression may have started last night as the Islanders dropped six on them.
The Golden Knights also lost yet another goaltender last night with Oscar Dansk leaving in the second period with an injury. Their goalies on the roster tonight will be Maxime Lagace and 18-year-old Dylan Ferguson. Lagace made his NHL debut last night, and it was a disappointing debut as he allowed four goals on 11 shots. Ferguson was a seventh-round draft pick just last June.
To say the Rangers are chalk is an understatement given Vegas’ unsustainable early play, their goaltender situation, and the fact that they’re playing for the second night in a row on the road. The Rangers mixed up their lines in morning skate this morning which comes with some good and some bad. The bad is the previous top line of Zibanejad, Nasj and Miller were all staying together on the top PP unit. Zibanejad is now skating with Kreider and Buchnevich. The good news there is that Buchnevich was already on the top PP unit with Ziba, and now he should see a minutes increase, which makes him a better value than he already was as his minutes should increase. Ziba and Nash would have been an expensive mini-stack, but Ziba/Buch is much more doable. It just hurts a full line stack a bit as Kreider plays on the second PP unit. On the blue line for the first PP unit is Kevin Shattenkirk. who is priced much better on DK.
The Rangers aren’t exactly a dominant possession team themselves, and Henrik Lundqvist has been spotty early, so Vegas could be worth a look in GPPs. As mentioned earlier this season, I prefer skewing more toward GPPs on short slates simply because it’s so tough to differentiate your lineups in cash games. The margin for error is smaller in short slate cash games, but it’s easy to get contrarian in GPPs.
Vegas’ line of Reilly Smith, William Karlsson and Jon Marchessault has been a very good possession trio this season. Smith has two multi-point games this season, Marchessault has goals in three of seven games played, and Karlsson has points in five of his last six. Karlsson and Smith stay together on the power play while Marchessault plays on the other unit. Smith is priced the best of the trio, especially on DK, Marchessault is priced reasonably on both sites, and Karlsson is a bit overpriced on FD.
The only option in net for this one is Henrik Lundqvist in cash games. He hasn’t been sharp early in the season, but his team is the biggest favorite of the night at home against a team playing for the second night in a row.
Arizona Coyotes at Detroit Red Wings
Arizona is embarrassingly bad this year as their record sits at 1-10-1, and they have allowed the most goals this season. They also played last night on the road, so Detroit is as obvious as it gets.
Detroit’s top line is the chalk play, and they all stay together on the top PP unit. Henrik Zetterberg centers the line with Gustav Nyquist and Tomas Tatar on his wings. Zett is on a four-game pointless streak, but he’s playing about 20 minutes per night and averaging three shots per game, so he’ll be fine. Nyquist has been Detroit’s best possession forward this season, and he has three points in his last four games with 14 SOG in that stretch. None of the trio are really a value anywhere, but none is so overpriced as to be unusable apart from perhaps Tatar on FD.
Aside from the top liners, Anthony Mantha is a nice option, especially on FD where he’s priced very well. Mantha has nine points in 12 games, and his second line should get a boost with Andreas Athanasiou getting back on the ice after a contract issue.
On the blue line, Mike Green would be the only guy to consider and only on FD given that he’s way overpriced on DK. Green has 10 assists in 12 games.
If you want to be contrarian with Yotes, their top line and top D pair are the only real options as they’re the only Yotes who have produced anything at all this season. Clayton Keller has been excellent with 13 points in 12 games, including at least one in each of his last six, and an average of almost four SOG per game. His line mates, Max Domi and Derek Stepan, are priced better on DK than FD, so you could consider a Yotes stack there in GPPs. Also priced well on DK is D-man Oliver-Ekman Larsson who joins them on the top PP unit.
Whoever starts in net for Detroit will be a great cash game option as the Wings are the second biggest favorite of the night, and they have the highest probable win percentage according to Corsica.hockey/predictions. Detroit’s starter and Lundqvist may also be the best GPP options given that Vegas and Arizona are the two teams in action tonight with the highest number of shot attempts per 60.
Presumably it will be Adin Hill in net for the Yotes, and given his .880 save percentage in three starts this season, he’s too hard to trust even as a contrarian GPP play.
Winnipeg Jets at Minnesota Wild
The over/under for this game opened at six but has since dropped to the normal 5.5. Whether it moves back to six largely depends on who starts in net for the Jets, with Steve Mason being the more goal-friendly option.
The Wild are favored at home, but let’s start with the Jets. Minnesota’s top line has carried over their success from last season and has been a dominant possession line early on. Minny’s top line will get Winnipeg’s top line, so that line is not an option tonight. The question is whether the Scheifele line or the Little line is considered the top line. The last time these teams played in Minnesota was last November, and Scheifele’s line got the Koivu line, though Scheifele had Wheeler and Ehlers on his wings then and tonight it will be Wheeler and Kyle Connor.
The Scheifele line is at bigger risk of getting that brutal matchup, but it’s at lease possible that the Little line could get it given that Ehlers and Laine are on the wings there. Long story short, you can’t risk the Scheifele line since they’re more likely to get the bad matchup, so the Little line is the play if you want Jets. Ehlers on FD is priced the best of that trio.
For the Wild, the matchup to avoid is Winnipeg’s top D pair, and that pair tends to skate with whatever top six line is getting the tougher matchup in road games. That means they’ll likely skate with whoever draws the Koivu line, so the Koivu line has the worst individual matchup for Minny. Their best non-Koivu line forward is definitely Eric Staal, who centers the second line and plays on the second PP unit. Nino Neiderreiter will return to the lineup tonight after six games missed due to injury to join Staal at even strength and on the power play, so that’s a nice mini-stack option tonight. Unfortunately, Staal doesn’t spend much time on ice with Ryan Suter or Jared Spurgeon who are Minnesota’s best offensive threats from the blue line.
The goalies in this one aren’t great options as these two teams both rank bottom five in terms of shot attempts per 60. You need goalies to make saves in DFS, and this may be a low shot output affair. If anything, Alex Stalock as a home favorite could be a cash game option.