When there are only three or four games, we will not put out the full DFS Playbook, but will do optimal lineups along with a breakdown of the slate. Tonight, we have the typical Monday Night slate with three games to consider.
First off, a disclaimer. I highly recommend focusing on just GPPs on the shorter slate. I think there’s enough skill to play cash games, but there’s going to be way more variance than usual.
Buffalo Sabres @ Boston Bruins (Boston -166 favorites) - 7:00 PM ET
Starting Goalies: Robin Lehner (BUF) [Confirmed] vs. Tuukka Rask (BOS) [likely]
Top Plays: Patrice Bergeron, Brad Marchand, Ryan O’Reilly
Top Values: David Pastrnak, Ryan Spooner, Matt Moulson, Sam Reinhart
At press time, Boston was quite the favorite despite the human train wreck they were in their last game against the New York Rangers. It just points to the fact that simply Tuukka Rask has to be that damn good in order for them to win. The power play is still abysmal and is more a danger than a positive. Maybe against Buffalo, they will start to turn the corner a little as Buffalo’s penalty kill is only as good as their goalkeeper.
Buffalo is missing Evander Kane and Jack Eichel. Their depth is not where it should be and a couple of their defensemen are also banged up. Despite this, they are treading water and getting timely goal scoring by playing a counter attack style. More and more teams are unintentionally doing this and Sam Reinhart could be a decent X-Factor tonight against a Boston team not fleet of foot defensively. Looking toward value on GPP’s tonight may serve well especially from the underdogs.
Vancouver Canucks @ New York Islanders (NYI -178 favorites) - 7:00 PM ET
Starting Goalies: Ryan Miller (VAN) [Confirmed] vs. Jaroslav Halak (NYI) [Confirmed]
Top Plays: John Tavares
Top Values: Cal Clutterbuck, Dennis Seidenberg, Henrik Sedin, Brandon Sutter
It will be wild to see how the Islanders come out tonight considering they were a house of fire early against Edmonton and again could not hold a lead. They did stabilize but ultimately lost in a shootout. What was good was the continued solid play of Dennis Seidenberg and Cal Clutterbuck. The loss of Travis Hamonic for at least a month will test their already compromised depth but could mean more opportunities for value plays. It is the value this evening that is heavy in this match-up.
The same could be said for Vancouver as defensively they can be a sieve but their goaltending has been good for the most part. It may be best to just pick and choose a player here and there but not a particular stack as Vancouver outside of the Sedin Twins is best described as having less upside. Vancouver’s second line could be the contrarian play to go with surprisingly enough as the Islanders team defense is one of the worst when it comes to allowing shots and scoring chances.
Tampa Bay Lightning @ Florida Panthers (TAM -110 favorites) – 7:30 PM ET
Starting Goalies: Ben Bishop (TAM) [Confirmed] vs. Roberto Luongo (FLA) [Confirmed]
Top Plays: Steven Stamkos, Nikita Kucherov, Jonathan Marchessault
Top Values: Val Filppula, Alex Killorn, Keith Yandle, Victor Trochek
Tampa Bay has been getting better goaltending from Ben Bishop of late and that has keyed their bounce back over the last half dozen games or so. The record may not completely show that but improvements are noticeable. Nikita Kucherov is very hot with eight points in his last four games. He looks dangerous every time he touches the puck which helps Steven Stamkos even more. Florida will be tested like how Washington tested them last week.
Florida looks a little lost like they did for the first part of last year before they had that 12 game winning streak. Something is always missing from night to night most of the time. Their last complete effort was probably in Detroit oddly enough. Injuries have hurt and Jaromir Jagr being not 100% complicates things. However, he did appear at morning skate and so did Jussi Jokinen so expect the possibility of even more shuffling.
Stacks To Consider (Ranked From Most To Least Confident):
BOS1: Brad Marchand-Patrice Bergeron-David Pastrnak-Torey Krug
NYI1: Josh Bailey-John Tavares-Cal Clutterbuck (possibly Johnny Boychuk)
TAM1: Vladislav Namestikov-Steven Stamkos-Nikita Kucherov-Victor Hedman
FLA2: Colton Scevior-Vincent Trocheck-Reilly Smith (Jokinen may play)
TAM2: Ondrej Palat-Tyler Johnson-Brayden Point
BUF1: Matt Moulson-Ryan O’Reilly-Kyle Okposo-Rasmus Ristolainen
VAN2: Markus Granlund-Brandon Sutter-Loui Eriksson
NYI3: Anders Lee-Brock Nelson-Jason Chimera (High risk but upside)
BOS2: Ryan Spoonr-David Krejci-David Backes (adjust higher for GPP’s)
Goalie Rankings:
1. Tuukka Rask (Likely)
2. Jaroslav Halak (Confirmed)
3. Ben Bishop (Confirmed)
4. Ryan Miller (Confirmed)
5. Roberto Luongo (Confirmed)
6. Robin Lehner (Confirmed)
The DraftKings example lineup and FanDuel optimal lineup was posted around 4 PM ET. If you have any questions, please let me know on Twitter @ChrisWasselDFS Good luck!