Tonight's two-game NHL DFS slate features the first elimination game of Round 2 of the Stanley Cup Playoffs, as the Tampa Bay Lightning will try to sweep the Florida Panthers on home ice. We will also see the St. Louis Blues, down two games to one, take on Nathan MacKinnon and the Colorado Avalanche. You can build daily fantasy hockey lineups on DraftKings, FanDuel, and Yahoo Fantasy for tonight's NHL playoffs action. Before you build those NHL daily fantasy lineups, don’t forget to check out our NHL DFS projections, the NHL Value Finder, and the NHL DFS lineup generator. Let's now take a closer look at the daily fantasy hockey top plays for the main slate on Monday, May 23rd. 

 

 

Florida Panthers at Tampa Bay Lightning

 

 

With the Florida Panthers on the verge of elimination, look for their top forwards to see big minutes tonight. Specifically, Aleksander Barkov, Jonathan Huberdeau, and Sam Reinhart should all see more than 20 minutes. Barkov is coming off a six-shot game and we know that those other Florida players are going to need to have big games for this series to be extended. For the Tampa Bay Lightning, their stars have played well. Nikita Kucherov is coming off a four-point game, Steven Stamkos has two goals, and Corey Perry just continues to be a great value as he has scored in all three games of this series. 

The Panthers continue to produce no value from their defensemen in this series. I wouldn’t avoid them as a whole, though. As for the Lightning, Victor Hedman continues to be worth a look. He is coming off a four-shot game with a blocked shot and an assist. We continue to see solid value from Ryan McDonough as he continues to block lots of shots. 

You can certainly make the case that the difference in this series so far is the goalies. That isn’t to say that Sergei Bobrovsky has been bad, but Andrei Vasilevskiy has been excellent and is the difference-maker by and large. I wouldn’t avoid either goalie, but if I had to pick one, I would take Vasilavskiy. 

Colorado Avalanche at St. Louis Blues

 

 

This should be a very interesting game as the St. Louis Blues are not going to want to go back to Colorado on the brink of elimination. If that wasn’t enough motivation, Nazem Kadri will have his face on many dartboards in St. Louis following the Jordan Binnington injury in the previous game. Kadri did have a nice offensive game with a goal and an assist, and we also saw multi-point games from Arturi Lehkonen and Mikko Rantanen as the Avalanche continue to show they can beat you with more than just their top line. For the Blues, Ryan O’Reilly continues to be a top play even while spending much of this time trying to shut down Nathan MacKinnon. Other Blues players worth noting for today are Pavel Buchnevhich, who continues to be solid, and we should never completely forget Vladimir Tarasenko, who is capable of putting up a lot of shots and scoring goals. 

Cale Makar has had a solid series so far and is coming off a three-blocked shot game, but just one point. We haven’t seen any big games from Devon Toews yet in this series, though he is still worth a look as he can contribute to all of the DFS counting stats. We have been seeing productivity from Josh Manson, who could be a solid value play if he continues to put up points. For the Blues, we continue to see nice value from Calle Rosen as he keeps blocking lots of shots. Otherwise, the Avs have largely been able to keep the Blues defense from doing much offensively. 

Darcy Kuemper has been solid in every game this series and is going to be a safe play in goal today. For the Blues to stay alive, they will need Ville Husso to return to his regular-season form where he was one of the best goalies in the league. His playoff performances have been underwhelming thus far, so he would be a GPP play only.

 

 

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