FanDuel NHL Blue Line Power Plays: October 17

We’re back with another FanDuel NHL Blue Line Power Plays column, for Tuesday, October 17th 2017.  This is a daily fantasy hockey column focused on top FanDuel NHL plays for your lineups each day.

After an action-packed Saturday, the NHL cooled off with only three games on Sunday and one game on Monday night.  But tonight’s schedule boasts eleven games, with two games nationally televised on NBC Sports Network (NBC SN).

Here’s a look at the NHL schedule for Tuesday, October 17th:

Penguins at Rangers (7pm ET)

Panthers at Flyers (7pm ET)

Maple Leafs at Capitals (7pm ET)

Lightening at Devils (7:30pm ET NBC SN)

Canucks at Senators (7:30pm ET)

Avalanche at Predators (8pm ET)

Blue Jackets at Jets (8pm ET)

Coyotes at Stars (8:30pm ET)

Hurricanes at Oilers (9pm ET)

Sabres at Golden Knights (10pm ET)

Canadiens at Sharks (10:30pm ET NBC SN)

With so many goalie and skater options on the ice, it’s easy to make multiple lineups for the Tuesday night slate.  But, there are some great situations to target.  We have some high-scoring offensive teams facing poor defending team, and vice-versa.

It will be interesting to see if the Flyers and Panthers each continue their early season scoring surge, as they face each other in Philadelphia.  The Penguins have let too many pucks through the crease, and the Rangers have been quiet, but still dangerous, on the offensive front.

Will the Stars finally jump-start their offense, in Dallas, against the leagues worst defense and goal tending, the Coyotes?  And will the Vegas Golden Knights continue their surprise inaugural start to the 2017-2018 season?  We’ll investigate and use the knowledge to build some ideal lineups with a very clogged list of players on the board.

As always, we’ll look to update our picks and final lineups prior to lock on our twitter account @FantasyCPR so make sure to give us a follow for all the late breaking lineup news.

Now let’s start building our lineups by looking at the top centers for this slate…

Top FanDuel NHL Centers: Oct 17th

Once again on a Tuesday night, we have a plethora of top talent to pick from for the center position.  While Connor McDavid ($9,200) is on the ice and one of the top players in the NHL, Connor is facing a stingy Hurricanes defense only giving up 2.67 goals per game this season, tied for tenth best in the NHL.

Unlike McDavid, Tyler Seguin ($8,600) has a rosy match up, at home, in Dallas tonight.  Tyler has at least one goal in three of his first five games of the season, as well as an assist.  Even when not scoring, twice this season, Seguin’s floor was eight and 14.4 FanDuel NHL points in over 20 minutes of ice time.

But tonight, the Stars welcome a Coyotes defense who’s given up an amazing 4.4 goals per game, the worst in the NHL.  So it’s very likely Tyler piles up over 20 FanDuel NHL points tonight, on a decent $8.6K salary.

If you’re looking for a cheaper option from the Stars, the 2nd and 3rd lines haven’t been as productive and are very cheap in an ideal situation.  Jason Spezza ($5,800) is only averaging over nine FanDuel NHL points-per-game, but he has three assists in his last four games.  And former Coyotes star Martin Hanzal ($4,400) is leading the Stars 3rd line and is bound to bounce back, after scoring only one goal in their first five games.

For some reason Sean Couturier ($4,900) and the Flyers offense has been hot, but their FanDuel salaries haven’t budged much.  Couturier is leading the Flyers top line.  The Fly-guys are averaging 4.2 goals per game on offense, 2nd most among all NHL teams.  Sean has three goals and three assists already, with top veteran talent surrounding him.  This is a great value play with Seguin.

Heading up the second line for the Flyers is Valtteri Filppula ($4,000).  If you need to save $900 for another spot on your roster, Filppula hasn’t been as dominate as Couturier, but Valtteri has three goals in the Flyers last two games.  The Flyers face a Panthers team giving up 3.75 goals per game this season, fourth worst in the NHL.

Now let’s take a look at the wings we want to stack along with our centers…

Top FanDuel NHL Wings: Oct 17th

The Colorado Avalanche are playing some fantastic defense, and tending the net well, to start this season.  The Avs have only given up 2.17 goals per game.  But two of their first five games are against a struggling Bruins offense, who hasn’t put up much offensive production on anyone.  So it remains to be seen how well the Avalanche have really progressed from last season.

Tonight, is the Avs first test.  They’re traveling to Nashville to play a tough Predators hockey team.  I’m mostly avoiding the Preds tonight, but it’s hard to ignore the current hot streak Filip Forsberg ($7,900).  With five goals and two assists in the Preds first five games, Forsberg continues to stay hot, after emerging as an offensive star in the middle of last season.  If there’s anything we learned from Filip’s streaky play, if he’s hot you need him in your DFS NHL lineups.

Getting back to the Stars, to develop an offensive stack, we really like Jamie Benn ($7,900) playing on Seguin’s top line tonight.  Been started the season cold, with no goals on eleven shots, and only one assist.  But against the Predators and Avalanche, over the last two games, Jamie piled up two goals, including a power play goal, and an assist.  Tonight, Benn should be one of your top plays at the wing position.

The Buffalo Sabres are giving up 3.67 goals per game, tied for 6th worst in the NHL.  The Vegas Golden Knights have been a surprisingly tough team to be at the start of this season, and James Neal ($7,900) is a big reason.  Neal cooled off on Sunday against the Bruins, but prior to that game he had six goals in only four games, including a power play goal.  James is averaging over 20 FanDuel NHL points-per-game, and has another ideal match up tonight.

If you’re playing Couturier on the Flyers top line tonight, you should strongly consider stacking Sean with the Flyers captain, Claude Giroux ($6,700).  Give games into the season, Girous has three goals and four assists, a much better start than we saw last year.  On Saturday, Claude punched in two goals, along with two assists, leading to a monster 48 FanDuel NHL point event.  He should stay hot tonight.

While the Flyers are scoring a lot of goals, they’re also giving up three per game.  Jonathan Huberdeau ($6,400) has been off to a tremendously hot start, scoring three goals and providing two helpers, leading to a scoring point in each of his first four games of the season.  Huberdeau takes his hot play into Philadelphia tonight, against the Flyers number two goalie.

We’ve talked about a lot of hot talented wings, but many are pricey tonight.  So you’re likely going to need value picks for affordability.  I’ve got two.  Ryan Dzingel ($3,400) has two goals in his last three games, and is getting over 18 minutes of ice time each game on the Senators 2nd line.  Ryan had worked through an injury during preseason, but appears clearly healthy, and is a very underrated second line wing on a productive team.  The Senators get an easy opponent at home tonight, the Canucks.

My favorite value play of the night is Alex Tuch ($3,300).  He’s only been in seven NHL games, but in Tuch’s first game of the season, this year, he had an assist and goal in 13 minutes of ice time.  The 21-year-old prospect has a better match up tonight at home, with renewed confidence.  For only $3,300, we’re test-driving a very talented young player tonight.

Top FanDuel NHL Defenders: Oct 17th

While Brent Burns ($7,200) and Kris Letang ($7,100) are always solid picks on defense, and their salaries have been more affordable lately, they’re also struggling a bit to start the season.  We will continue to fade Burnsy and Letang, and I’d focus on picking up Erik Karlsson ($7,000) if you have enough salary.

We touched on it earlier, we love the Senators match up hosting the Canucks tonight.  Erik dealt with a foot injury, and most the start of the season, as well as most of the postseason.  But tonight, Karlsson will be back on the ice and is a must-play in most cash games.

But if you’re nervous about Karlsson’s injury, you’ll definitely want to grab P.K. Subban ($6,500).  The Preds defender is off to an incredible start to the season, now with six assists and one goal.  Aside from a 3.2 FanDuel NHL point result in the second game of the season against the Penguins, P.K. has had more than 16 points in each of his other four games, and is now averaging over 18 FanDuel NHL points-per-game.

Another very hot defender, and nearly equal in price, is John Klingsberg ($6,200).  While he cooled off a bit last game with only 3.2 FanDuel NHL points, in his first four games of the season, John had 14+ FanDuel NHL points-per-game, and is now averaging over 17 per game.  Tonight’s ideal match up against the Coyotes at home, along with a potential Stars stack, makes Klingsberg one of the top options on defense tonight.

The Ghost is back in Philly!  Shayne Gostisbehere ($5,600) had a rough sophomore season, last year, after literally getting the keys to the city of Philadelphia after his tremendous rookie season.  But five games into the 2017-2018 season, Ghots already has eight assists.  Like the Stars stacking option, if you’re stacking the Flyers, you want this 2nd line defender in your lineup.

But, these are all fairly pricey options at defense.  If you’re looking for a more affordable value pick, Ivan Provorov ($4,300) is a great way to either complete a Flyers stack, or to get in on their top line productivity against the Panthers.

Top FanDuel NHL Goalies: Oct 17th

Three of the top four most expensive goalie options are all rock-solid.  Carey Price ($9,1000) and the Canadiens have been off to a rough start, and we don’t expect the Habs to bounce back in San José against a good Sharks team.  But Braden Holtby ($9,300), Sergei Bobrovsky ($9,200), and Ben Bishop ($9,000) are all red-hot in front of the net now, and mostly have ideal match ups.  Between those three, Bobrovsky and Bishop are likely to be the top plays.

With Marc-Andre Fleury on the IR for the Vegas Golden Knights, 23-year-old Malcolm Subban ($7,200), the younger brother of P.K. Subban, is in goal for his second game of the season tonight.  In his first start, Malcolm stopped 21 of 22 shots, for the win and 24.8 FanDuel NHL points.

Tonight, Subban admittedly has a tougher match up, but at home in Vegas.  But the Sabres have struggled to create much offense early in the season, averaging only 2.33 goals per game, 22nd in the NHL.  Also, we already mentioned how the Sabres have the 6th worst goals-against average.  So, there’s not only solid potential for Subban to get 12 points for the win, but he likely keeps the goal scoring to a minimum, and has another shot at over 20 points on a super cheap salary for a goalie.

So, after reviewing all of our favorite options, here’s an example of a lineup we put together for Oct 17th FanDuel NHL:

C    Seguin (DAL $8,600)         

C    Filppula (PHI $4,000)

W   Forsberg (NSH $7,900)

W   Benn (DAL $7,900)

W   Dzingel (OTT $3,400)

W   Tuch (VGK $3,300)

D    Subban (NSH $6,500)

D    Klingberg ($6,200)

G    Subban (VGK $7,200)

Note: This is a recommended lineup after discussing our top options for the week.  You should use this as a guide, and provide your own input when building FanDuel NHL lineups.  We are not telling you, or selling you, to use this lineup.

Next: FanDuel NBA October 17th

Best of luck in your FanDuel NHL contests and stay tuned to Fantasy CPR for all your DFS news and analysis across NHL, NBA, EPL, and NFL this fall!