NHL DFS Playbook: November 15

New York Islanders at Tampa Bay Lightning

The Islanders head into Tampa Bay in a rematch of last year's Eastern Conference Finals.

Over the last two weeks, much of the Islanders' production(both real-life and fantasy) has come from Brock Nelson and Anders Lee. They have combined for 8 goals and 28 shots in four games. They don't play together so if you're going to use either of those players you will want to look to pair Nelson with Anthony Beauvillier, or if you're looking at Lee you will want to use Mathew Barzal, each has three assists in their last four games. I would expect the Lee/Barzal combination to be more popular, where you will get some cost savings from Nelson/Beauvillier. Much of Tampa's production has come from their top line. In their last five games, Brayden Point has 5 points, while Ondrej Palat and Anthony Cirelli both have 4. That said we shouldn't discount the abilities of Steven Stamkos and Alex Killorn who are technically second-line players, but both play on the Lightning powerplay and can be useful lowered owned options.

The Islanders' defence isn't full of point producers but they do have players in Ryan Pulock, Scott Mayfield and Noah Dobson who average more than 2.5 blocks per game, and Pulock and Dobson have the added advantage of playing on the Islanders powerplay. From the perspective of upside, Victor Hedman is your guy. He has 3 points and 17 shots in his last five games to go along with 10 blocks. Erik Cernak from a value perspective can offer you some cheap blocks and potentially hit the block bonus on DraftKings.

Ilya Sorokin has been fantastic for the Islanders so far this season. He has a 0.933 save percentage, and he is fifth in goals saved above average, and he isn't even the most expensive goalie available on this slate. After a bit of a slow start, Andrei Vasilevskiy has been excellent over the last couple of weeks. In those two weeks, he has a sub-two goals-against average, four wins and a 0.937 save percentage.

Detroit Red Wings at Columbus Blue Jackets

Tonight we see a match-up between two upstart mid-western teams.

Detroit has seen some of their young players be key contributors, but as of late Dylan Larkin has been doing the majority of the damage for the Red Wings. He has three goals and 11 shots in his last three games. Robby Fabbri is a player for Detroit who can be interesting. He also has 11 shots in his last three games, but he only has one point to show for it, but you are going to get him at a discount Fabbri is certainly capable of scoring goals and he is on the top powerplay unit as well. Columbus has seen a very well-rounded effort across the board. Jakob Voracek and Oliver Bjorkstrand both have two points in their last three games. You can match them together and get the power-play correlation, or you can play them with Boone Jenner or Cole Sillinger to match their lines and still get the power-play correlation as well. You could also play all four if you wanted to heavily stack Columbus.

On defence for Detroit, everything falls to Moritz Seider. He has been special in his rookie season, taking over the top power play, playing quality defence and providing points as well. He doesn't typically give you enough shots or blocks to hit the bonuses, but he is a steady contributor if he is getting points. Danny DeKeyser can be a solid value play for Detroit. He will block shots and has hit DK's bonus in two of his last four games. Outside of Zack Werenski, you likely won't mind much value on defence from Columbus. Werenksi is a volume shooter as indicated by his 22 shots in his last four games. Jake Bean is another defenceman who can be interesting as he will give you a little bit of everything, just not consistently.

In his last four games, Alex Nedeljkovic has been solid for the Red Wings. He hasn't had a save percentage below 0.939 in those four games while collecting three wins. Columbus is expected to play Elvis Merzlikins in goal. Merzlikins has been as good as any goalie in the league this year. He has a 0.944 save percentage in three of his last five games, and in one of the games he didn't, he made more than 35 saves. 

{{item.name}}

Position	Top Tier	Mid-Tier	Value-Tier
{{position.position.alias}}	{{position.top.name}}	{{position.mid.name}}	{{position.value.name}}