Welcome to Saturday’s NHL Showdown Slate. The Edmonton Oilers return home and have no choice but to win if they want to extend their series. The Vancouver Canucks are hoping to wrap things up on the road and move on to the next round. Showdown lineups can be challenging to build, but don’t worry, we will guide you. 

 

 


NHL DFS Picks & Playbook For Today, 5/18

Don't forget to review our NHL DFS projections, NHL Value Finder, and NHL DFS lineup generator before finalizing your NHL daily fantasy lineups for Saturday, May 18th on DraftKings and FanDuel. Let's now explore my top NHL DFS picks for today's slate!


 

Highest Expected Goal Totals 

Vancouver Canucks Vs. Stuart Skinner (2.6)

Edmonton Oilers Vs. Arturs Silovs (3.6)


Vancouver Canucks vs Edmonton Oilers
 


The Edmonton Oilers have been pushed to the brink of elimination and need a win tonight to keep their Stanley Cup dream alive. The Vancouver Canucks played a very good game on home ice, but now they travel back to Edmonton and need to make sure that they keep the Oilers’ best players in check. J.T. Miller has been able to do that so far in this series, but you can only contain Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl for so long.

When building a showdown lineup, you must get the Captain's spot right. There are lots of different ways to go tonight, but the two players we will focus on are McDavid and Stuart Skinner. McDavid is the best player in the world and there is no denying that. If the Oilers want to extend their season, he’s going to need to lead the way. I expect him to get a good matchup on home ice and play a ton of minutes. Skinner is a risky option, but one that could pay off. The expectation is that he will start Game 6 after watching the last game from the bench. He hasn’t been good in this series, but maybe he just needed a small reset. The Canucks don’t generate a ton of shots on goal, so his upside is limited. Still, we are chasing the win here and the Oilers have a good chance of pushing this series to Game 7.

As for the rest of our lineup, we are going to target some very specific players. It would be wise to fit in at least one more superstar, so we will go with Evan Bouchard. He is quarterbacking the top power play unit that is operating at over 40% and his floor is extremely high. $8600 on DraftKings might seem high for him, but honestly, it is a discount. If you can fit Zach Hyman in too, you’ve got a solid start.

Now we need to find some value players who have a high floor. The first name that comes to mind is Nikita Zadorov. The big defenseman has been a little inconsistent of late, but he’s playing about 20 minutes a night and he’s getting a decent amount of shots on goal. What we really want from him is to block shots, but he has just 1 in the last 2 games. Maybe that number goes up tonight because Vancouver is on the road. If we flip to the other side, Dylan Holloway is a name to consider. He is skating in the top six and finished the last game with 2 shots on goal and 4 blocked shots. He played only 12 minutes in Game 5, but at $4000, the upside is there. I’d like to see him play a bit more, but we may just have to live with his limited minutes.