NHL Daily Plays: Sunday, March 22nd
After a huge slate of games yesterday, good enough to support the DraftKings $200K World Hockey Championship live in Las Vegas, the NHL scales back to a fractured four-game schedule for today’s contests. A shoutout must go to the winner of the World Championship, LSphila, who took home a cool $100K.
Since the first game on the slate starts at 12 PM, we will work with the remaining three games using FanDuel pricing. With a quick check at the FanDuel lobby, there are plenty of GPPs that have that 5 PM start time. This article will concentrate on finding a few value plays to help you diversify your rosters for tonight.
Goaltenders
As always, please check goaltender confirmations on the RotoGrinders Starting Goalies Page to ensure the goalie you select is indeed starting tonight.
Jacob Markstrom ($5,000): Canucks insider Irfaan Gaffar is reporting that Lack was to get the nod yesterday and Markstrom would be the starter today. Although it is not ‘officially’ confirmed, it does make sense for two reasons. One, the Canucks won last night, making it a bit easier to start a backup between the pipes on a back to back and two, their opponent in the Arizona Coyotes are not that good of a team. The Coyotes have lost their last seven games and have a defenseman not only leading their team in goals, but total points as well. This should be reason enough to take the goalie from the highest favored team of the night.
Centers
Henrik Sedin ($5,100): As mentioned above, the Canucks should be able to put the puck in the net tonight with some frequency. Mike Smith has been confirmed as the Coyote goalie, and if you are a fan of targeting goalies in back-to-back situations, it would benefit you to roster some Canucks tonight. Henrik plays top power-play minutes along with his brother Daniel, who is priced at $6,300 on the left wing. Add right winger Radim Vrbata ($ 6.500) and you have the start of a good cash game lineup tonight.
J.T. Miller ($3.700): Looking at the list of centers available for this three-game slate, it would appear that Steven Stamkos ($8,400) may just be the play of the night. The problem is though, you need to roster two of them, so either way you slice it, with or without him, you will need another. With the injury to Martin St. Louis, this apparently has opened the door for J.T.Miller. Miller saw equal amount of power-play minutes in yesterday’s game, albeit with the second unit. This did not deter him from scoring, however, as his power-play goal tied the game in the second period en route to a 3-2 shootout win in Carolina last night. Add Miller’s upside with his price and you get a nice value play.
Wingers
Alex Killorn LW ($4,800): Killorn is currently skating on the top line and top power-play units for Tampa Bay. If by some strange reason you cannot fit Steven Stamkos into your lineup, this will give you optimum exposure to him at almost a minimal price. The Lightning have scored power play goals in 8 of their last 12 games, while their opponent, the Boston Bruins, have given up 8 goals in their last 13 games on the penalty kill. Consider that Boston is on a back to back, fresh off their game against the Panthers, it just may be you find yourself rostering some Bolts tonight.
Corey Perry RW ($8,900): With such a small slate and since I already mentioned Radim Vrbata earlier, there really isn’t much left to choose from for cash games outside of Perry, Mats Zuccarello ($6,100) and Ryan Callahan ($5,700). Although Perry has only two points in his last three games, he is still my choice as I can easily fit him into my lineups with some of the previously mentioned plays.
Defense
Victor Hedman ($5,800): No need to get fancy here, as Hedman has seen his power play time increase to the levels of almost where they were before his injury. It doesn’t hurt that he has responded with one goal and three assists in the last two games. As stated above, it is no secret that Tampa should get some power-play opportunities in tonight’s game, and Hedman should be in the middle of it.
As always, good luck in your games.