NHL Daily Plays: Thursday, November 6th
Happy Thursday, fellow NHL DFSers! Last week’s article received some great feedback, including well thought-out questions in the comment section below. Let’s keep it up.
Following Wednesday’s typically slow 3-game slate, the NHL gives us the usually busy slate on Thursday with 10 games from which we may select players for our lineups. A quick glance at the matchups hints that we have some fairly lopsided matchups, so tonight will depend on how accurately you can select your goal scorers from a large slate of games.
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, FantasyAces 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 Bruins (-200 over the Oilers), the Lightning (-170 over the Flames), the Blues (-170 over the Devils), the Flyers (-165 over the Panthers), the Kings (-168 over the Islanders), and the Sharks (-155 over the Canucks). Of the twenty teams in action, only the Islanders are playing on back-to-back nights and they only had to take a short bus trip from Anaheim to Los Angeles. Akin 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
Tuukka Rask – Boston Bruins – As of the writing of this article, the Vegas moneyline for the Boston Bruins skating on home ice against the banged-up, Edmonton Oilers, was the highest of the night. With a ML sitting at -200 with an over/under of 5.5 goals, the Bruins should take this game with ease over a team that has lost three in a row and scored just 4 goals over that span. Meanwhile, the Bruins have won three in a row and have scored a total of 9 goals over that span. Yes, those three wins came against the Sabres, Senators and Panthers, but the home team has been skating and shooting with more confidence and we all know that confident team can do good damage in the NHL (e.g., look at the Kings last season). Of course, Rask will not come cheap. At $10,000 on FD and $8,800 on DK, Rask is just the fourth most expensive goalie of the night (on DK, and second most on FD) and although Rask has not been his usual self in the 2014-2015 NHL season, his .906 SV% and his 2.53 have increased by .101 points and .30 points, respectively, since last Tuesday. Again, the Bruins have not faced the strongest teams, but as Rask gains more confidence that his defense will limit shots, he will have an easier time stopping those pucks that reach the net. Lastly, in analyzing a few advanced metrics, the Bruins limit opponents to 27.4 shots per game and the Oilers are averaging just 28.1 shots per game. If the Bs can hold the Oilers to their average, the Oilers have less of a chance of hitting their average of 2.50 goals per game as the Bruins have held teams to 2.36 goals per game. Taking into consideration that Oilers will be without Taylor Hall, these numbers point towards starting Rask.
Other goalies I like tonight that are likely to be get the win are Ben Bishop, Ray Emery, and Brian Elliott.
Forwards
Disclaimer – Steven Stamkos, Sidney Crosby, Vladimir Tarasenko, Chris Kunitz, Evgeni Malkin, Tyler Seguin, Jamie Benn, Joe Pavelski and Logan Couture carry a high price tag and may also be used as you see fit.
Jori Lehtera – St. Louis Blues – With linemate, Vladimir Tarasenko, now part of the “Disclaimer” for the first time, the first offensive play for Thursday is Lehtera, who centers the Blues’ send line with Jaden Schwartz and Tarasenko. Lehtera also skates with Patrik Berglund and Joakim Lindstrom on the Blues’ second power play unit. At an almost minimum price on DK, at $3,000, Lehtera should be a core cash game play that allows you room to start a top notch goaltender and another superstar skater. With two goals and six assists on the season to go along with 15 shots on goal, Lehtera’s price remains low due to his ice time as compared to other forwards on the top two lines of their team. However, Lehtera is starting to see his ATOI remain steady above the 17:00 mark and as this number approaches the 18:00 mark, the center will no longer be so inexpensive. As the second heaviest Vegas favorite of the night, having cheap exposure to the Blues and the white-hot, Tarasenko, is a must.
Chris VandeVelde – Philadelphia Flyers – My top minimum price special play of the night is Chris VandeVelde, who skated on the Flyers’ first line with Claude Giroux and Jakub Voracek at practice on Wednesday morning. VandeVelde took the spot of Michael Raffl, who has a lower-body injury and is likely to miss the next six weeks of action, at the LW spot and should have plenty of ice time to enjoy with two of the hottest shooters in the league. In 8 games, VandeVelde has just one goal and two assists, but keep in mind that his production came as a fourth line winger. With 10 hits and 4 blocked shots, VandeVelde will be a “value add” on sites that track “live stats” such as DK. The Flyers open as -165 ML favorites tonight on home ice against the Florida Panthers, who have won just 4 of their last 10 games and have averaged just 1.4 goals per game over that span. This game should be a “high-event” game even though the Panthers skate at the slowest pace (3.50 TG/G) and the Flyers average the 3rd most total goals per game (6.33). The Nils model has stated that when two teams are significantly unbalanced with respect to pace, the slower-paced team will be forced to skate up to the speed of the higher-paced team especially if the faster team is on home ice. Moreover, the Flyers give up the 4th most shots per game and the Panthers average the third fewest shots per game. This distinction adds more strength from Nils that this game will be a “high-event” game that favors the Flyers and its shooters.
Valterri Filppula – Tampa Bay Lightning – An upper-body injury to Alex Killorn has boosted the stock of Filppula, who skates with Steven Stamkos and Ryan Callahan on the Lightning’s first even strength line and with Ondrej Palat and Callahan on the team’s first power play unit. At just $5,300 on FD and a steal at $4,700 on DK, Filppula should be in line at least a few helpers tonight against the Flames, who play at the below average game pace but visit the Lightning who play at the 7th highest pace in the NHL. Filppula is taking the LW spot on the first line vacated due to Killorn’s injury and it has been one that has provided DFS players with critical value each night, but especially on nights when the Lightning are at home, where the Lightning are 5-1-1 and have averaged over 4 goals per game. While the Flames have won three in a row themselves, they have historically struggled versus the Lightning. With an O/U set at 5.5, look for a 4-2 Lightning win as the Lightning skate at a 6.17 TG/G pace while the Flames skate at just a 5.21 TG/G pace.
Other forwards that I like tonight are Ryan Callahan, Jeff Carter, Nazem Kadri, Jaden Schwartz, Tyler Toffoli, and Thomas Vanek.
Defensemen
Disclaimer: Mark Giordano, Brent Burns, Kris Letang, and Erik Karlsson are elite fantasy defensemen and can be used with confidence.
Anton Stralman – Tampa Bay Lightning – Once a minimum-priced play, the D-man has been skating with Matthew Carle on the Lightning’s first even strength defensive pairing and with Steven Stamkos on the team’s first power play unit since October 20, after the Lightning’s top defenseman fractured his finger. With Hedman out four-to-six weeks from mid-October, Stralman immediately saw his ice time jump from the sub-twenty minute mark where it now hovers between 24:00 and 25:00 minutes per game mark. Stralman’s price is down ($4,500 on FD and $3,500 on DK) as he is not a pure goal scorer, but he does have at least one point in three of his last four games (1 G, 3 As), but the exposure that he provides to the team’s first line and to Stamkos as his defensive partner on the PP unit at such an inexpensive price more than justifies rostering him.
Mark Streit – Philadelphia Flyers – At just $4,600 on DK (but comparably more expensive at $4,800 on FD), Streit is priced outside the first seventeen defenseman. With seven points (2 goals, 5 assists) in his last ten games, Streit has also seen his price tag drop $900 over the Flyers’ past four games. This was due to earning no points in three games prior to recording an assist the last game out on home ice against the Oilers, but he is in play tonight against the Panthers, who have the 6th worst penalty kill percentage in the NHL. Meanwhile, Streit is paired with Claude Giroux on the Flyers’ top power play unit, which is 13th best, and with Nicklas Grossmann on the team’s first even strength defensive unit. While the Panthers are not a heavily penalized team (12th in the NHL), they just lost a tough game in OT to the Bruins and need to face the 5th most penalized team in the league before they head home to face some of the top teams in the West. Look for this game to be fast and chippy, which should allow Streit to see more PP time than normal and, thus, more time skating with Giroux against a weak defense.
Other defensemen I like tonight are Cody Franson, Kevin Shattenkirk, Jason Garrison, and Christian Ehrhoff.