NHL Daily Plays: Thursday, March 19th
Happy Thursday, fellow NHL DFSers! Following Wednesday’s typically small three-game slate, the NHL gives us a busy slate on Thursday with ten games from which we may select players for our lineups. A quick glance at the games hints that we have some large favorites (and a few games with no Vegas lines posted yet), so tonight will depend on how accurately you can select your goal scorers from a large slate of expected blowouts and a few high-tempo matchups.
As a public service announcement, in doing a survey of the pricing for these “Daily Plays,” as I am sure you all know, each daily site has the players priced rather differently. As such, some of the recommended bargain plays may not be bargain plays on, for example, Victiv or DraftDay.
Before we dig into today’s daily plays, let’s examine what the current Vegas lines are telling us. Any astute daily fantasy player must be in tune to Vegas lines and over/unders as “they” always know more than we do. Our job is to interpret what these numbers mean so that we can use them in populating a DFS lineup on your favorite site. In looking at the Vegas lines, the heavy favorites are the Canadiens (-215 home against the Hurricanes), the Sharks (-167 at the Maple Leafs), the Avalanche (-165 at the Coyotes), the Wild (-145 home against the Capitals), and the Flames (-145 home against the Flyers). Several other lines have yet to be posted by Vegas. Of the twenty teams in action, only the Blue Jackets are playing on back-to-back nights. This is good news as most top goaltenders should be in net today. That said, similar to NBA DFS, there will be times when we will make lineup decisions based off of which teams are the most rested.
Good luck! I will online for most of the day to answer questions in the comments section below or on Twitter @TheTonyM.
Goalies
Make sure to check the RotoGrinders Starting Goalies Page to confirm that the goalies listed below are starting prior to puck-drop
Carey Price – Montreal Canadiens – As the heaviest favorite of the night according to Vegas, look no further than to the Canadiens for your netminder. Sure, Price is the most expensive goalie in play, but you are paying for the win and the possibility of a shutout on home ice against the Carolina Hurricanes. Unlike the risk of starting a high-priced goalie against the Sabres, Devils or Oilers, each of whom are in the bottom four in shots per game, the Hurricanes are a league-average shooting team with 30.4 S/GP. Despite Price’s tough loss on Monday to the Lightning, in which he stopped 30 of 33 shots, he should bounce back tonight on him ice against a Hurricanes squad that has struggled to score goals in March (apart from a seven-goal outburst against the lowly Oilers). In fact, the Hurricanes have just 13 goals (not including the Oilers game) in March in seven games played, six of which were losses. With a stellar home record of 22-8-3-2 on home ice, the Canadiens should have no trouble shutting down the Hurricanes and Price will be in line for 30 saves and the “W”.
Other Goalies To Target (Cash Games) – Marc-Andre Fleury, Eddie Lack, Semyon Varlamov
Other Goalies To Target (Tournaments) – Antti Niemi, Petr Mrazek
Forwards
Disclaimer – Alexander Ovechkin, Sidney Crosby, Max Pacioretty, Jamie Benn and Tyler Seguin carry a high price tag and may also be used as you see fit.
Daniel Sedin – Vancouver Canucks – Daniel broke his three-game scoring drought with two assists his last game out two nights ago against the Flyers in Vancouver. Tonight, the Canucks host the Blue Jackets who are coming off a 4-3 shootout win last night in Edmonton in which Columbus was outshot 47-27. One similarity between the Flyers and Blue Jackets that the Canucks should be able to exploit tonight is that both are in the bottom six in the NHL in penalty kill rate. In fact, the Blue Jackets have given up at least one shorthanded goal in eight straight games for a total of 14 (yes, 14) shorthanded goals during that span. While the Canucks have just a league average power play, they will dominate the Blue Jackets’ PK unit and should get at least two goals on home ice this evening against a team who is giving up the fourth-most shots per game in the NHL (32.9 SA/GP).
Johnny Gaudreau – Calgary Flames – Sites are finally starting to raise the prices of the Flames’ first line players to a respectable level, but they are still not reflective of the production that the line has amassed this month. Prior to being held off the scoresheet over his last two games, Gaudreau had a six-game point streak in which he scored four goals and racked up four assists. Tonight, the Flames host the Philadelphia Flyers, who have a dreadful 9-19-5-4 road record and have dropped six of their last seven games and have averaged just 0.86 goals per game in those six losses. Skating along with Sean Monahan and Jiri Hudler on the team’s first power play unit, the Flames’ and their 11th-best PP in the NHL should thoroughly exploit the league’s second worst penalty kill unit. With seven power-play goals in their last seven games (three of which came on home ice), the Flames should put up at least PPG against the Flyers and the Monahan line should have the best matchup with the last line switch at home.
Pierre (P.A.) Parenteau – Montreal Canadiens – If you are going to pay up for your netminder today, you must find some value in your lineup. As the largest favorite according to Vegas, one of the targets tonight is the Canadiens’ offense and one tenet that I covered in my NHL primer prior to the season was that you should look for skaters who are filling a void due to injury or an increased role. In comes Parenteau who is now skating on the team’s first even strength line with Max Pacioretty and Tomas Plekanec and on the team’s second power play unit with the same duo. With two goals over his past three games, Parenteau has skated well in March after missing time in January and February due to concussions. Now that Parenteau is skating with Pacioretty and Plekanec, who have three points between them over the past three games, he provides you cheap (near min price) exposure ($3.6K on FD and $3.3K on DK) to the top line on an offense that you want to target tonight against a Hurricanes team that is giving up 2.65 goals per game (17th in the NHL). With an over/under of 5.0 goals, the Canadiens should put up three goals (and one additional ENG) and the Plekanec line (including Parenteau) should be involved in two of those.
Other Forwards To Target (Cash Games) – Joe Pavelski, Logan Couture, Henrik Zetterberg, Jarome Iginla, T.J. Oshie, Alex Steen, Radim Vrbata, Gabriel Landeskog
Other Forwards To Target (Tournaments) – Marcus Johansson, Mark Stone, Tomas Tatar, Jiri Hudler, Matt Duchene
Defensemen
Disclaimer: Kris Letang, Erik Karlsson, Brent Burns and P.K. Subban are elite fantasy defensemen and can be used with confidence.
Kris Russell – Calgary Flames – There will be plenty of goals scored tonight in the Flames and Flyers game with most of them coming courtesy of the home team. At $4.6K on FD, Russell is $1.2K cheaper than his teammate, Dennis Wideman, but both have filled in more than admirably for superstar, Mark Giordano, who is out for the rest of the season with a torn tendon in his bicep. Russell has been held pointless over his past three games, but he will start a fresh streak tonight against the Flyers, who, as mentioned above in the Gaudreau write-up, have struggled mightily this month and have given up a total of four points to defensemen over their past three games. The Flyers are also an atrocious penalty kill team and the Flames, who have the 11th best PP conversion rate in the NHL, should see production from Russell (and his defensive pairmate, Wideman) on the PP. At $4.6K, Russell provides fairly inexpensive exposure to a high-scoring and high-event environment and is in play tonight against the Flyers, especially if you fade the Flames’ forwards for another offense.
Tyson Barrie – Colorado Avalanche – Any time a team faces the Arizona Coyotes, whether it is on home ice or in Phoenix, you will want exposure to that offense. Tonight, Colorado is a -165 road favorite against an Arizona team that is giving up the fourth most goals per game (3.23 GA/GP) and have given up the fifth most shots per game (32.5 SA/GP). At $5.7K, Barrie is the 11th-most expensive defenseman on FD and the 13th-most expensive on DK, but he should be in line for at least two assists and a few shots against the Coyotes who are playing just awful hockey having lost five straight games and fifteen of their last sixteen games. In fact, during the current losing streak, the Coyotes scored just three goals and were shut out twice. So, while the Aves play loose defense and give up the fourth most shots per game, any risk Barrie has at earning a minus on FD is minimized as the Coyotes simply cannot score. Moreover, the Aves should take advantage of the Coyotes’ fifth worst PK unit (78.3% kill rate) tonight.
Other Defensemen To Target (Cash Games) – Dennis Wideman, Niklas Kronwall, Andrei Markov, Alex Pietrangelo
Other Defensemen To Target (Tournaments) – Zach Redmond, Marc-Edouard Vlasic, Torey Krug, Alexander Edler