Its great to have regular season hockey on the go again, though this early in the season its hard for DFS, as there is a lack of solid information to base our decisions on. Much is based on last season, and things can change drastically one year to the next.
That being said, early trends can give us some indication of things to come, and hopefully help us find that edge we are looking for. Combined with the DFS Army NHL Research Station, and the great discussions that occur in the DFS Army Slack chat, this info will help us build our lineups.
We have 3 games on the slate tonight, and one of the interesting features of the early season has been the general lack of defence and goaltending. While these high numbers are almost certainly going to regress as teams get the kinks worked out, there are some situations that jump out for tonight. Generally speaking on a small slate like this we would play light and focus more on GPPs than Cash games.
Philadelphia at Ottawa the game has an o/v of 6, with the Flyers being the clear Vegas favorite. Having said that, Ott has scored more and allowed fewer goals than Phi through an equal number of games. The Flyers took a beating from SJ at home last night and travel to Ott on the back end of the b2b. Giroux and Voracek are the only Flyers to score more than 2 points so far ( 4 and 3 respectively) but neither has scored a goal yet. You cant see that stretching out much longer. Ghostisbiere is always worth considering, though 1 goal and -4 rating don’t fill you with confidence. On the Senators side, Chabot leads the way early with 2 goals and 3 assists, followed by Dzingle and Z Smith with 4 points each. Chabot with his 4300 FD/ 5300 DK pricing could provide some nice value , especially on FD. Dzingle ( 4800 FD/ 5100 DK ) and Smith ( 3300 FD/ 4300 DK ) to correlate on OTT 1, and PP!, but not with Chabot at this point. Over the last 4 years these two teams have won/lost equally and the goals for are pretty close, leaving us no really historic trends to consider.
Las Vegas at Washington We get an early Stanley Cup rematch. While you cant discount the revenge factor, things seem to lean the Caps way, and they had their way with Vegas winning the Stanley Cup in 5 games last spring. Another game with an o/u of 6, which isn’t a surprise given that Washington is averaging more than that themselves so far. VGK have been off to a frustrating start going 1-2 and only scoring 6 goals in those games. Marchessault and Karlsson lead the way but only have 2 points each. Wash is averaging over 6 goals a game scored through their two, with Oshie’s 5 points leading the way, followed by Carlson and Backstrom at 4. Ovi and Kusnetzov have 3. There is a lot of points to go around early this year for Washington. While I wouldn’t say its a value play, Carlson ( 6400 FD/6900 DK) would appear to be in a good spot if you pay up at Def. Oshie ( 6200 FD/6700 DK ) is hot and hard to ignore. The other leading scorers in Washington are worth considering too. For VGK Karlsson ( 7200 FD / 5800 DK) presents some value given his year last year, but only on DK. Marchessault (7300 FD/7100 DK) seems overpriced for what he has done so far.
Arizona at Anaheim The stoppable force vs the movable object is how this game feels. The o/v is 5.5. However the Ducks are averaging 3 goals for per game, and the Yotes have been shut out in both their games. Adding to the uncertainty, the Ducks will be without Eaves, Kesler, Perry, Kase and Getzlaf. That is a lot of significant fire power for them to be missing. Tonight’s top line of Silfverberg, Henrique and Comtois all have either 3 or 5 points. They might be the place to focus a line stack if you plan on using Anaheim. They are split between PP1 and PP2. Comtois ( 3300 FD /4500 DK) might be a real value play tonight. The other side of that is Arizona has only given up 2 goals a game so far. Raanta therefore makes a really interesting GPP play tonight. Its hard to focus on any scorers for Arizona. No player is really getting the shots on goal, obviously no one is scoring, but the likely hood of a 3rd straight shut out isn’t high. To me it seems its a team of dart throws, and if doing MME an Ari stack as one of them might pay off.
Goalies on the surface Gibson in Anaheim seems the top choice if you are playing cash. Ducks are 3-0 and have only allowed 4 goals in 3 games, and are playing a team that hasn’t found its offense yet. As mentioned above Raanta is in play in GPPs. The other 4 goalies tonight don’t jump off the page. Ott has the lowest ITT at 2.2 goals. But they are averaging about 3.66 goals per game right now. Philadelphia has also given up the most goals on the slate averaging 5 goals against per game. Wash has an ITT of almost 3.5 so other than a GPP stab with MAF I wouldn’t look at Vegas. Holtby might be in play in this game. I think I am staying away from G in the PHI-OTT game other than for GPP.
Players with Potential Value tonight.
Ana Comtois ( 3300 FD/4500 DK)
VGK Karlsson ( 7200 FD/5800 DK) DK only for value
Ott Chabot (4300 FD/ 5300 DK)
Ott Dzingle (4800 FD/ 5100 DK)
Ott Smith (3300 FD/ 4300 DK)
Have a fun night all