FanDuel NHL Blue Line Power Plays: October 27
By Matt Rogers
Welcome to the FanDuel NHL Blue Line Power Plays column. This is the Friday, October 27th edition. We’re a daily fantasy hockey column focused on top FanDuel NHL plays for your lineups each day.
After a few short-scheduled Friday nights over the last few weeks, it’s a welcome sight to have the NHL schedule six games for October 27th. One of those games, the Predators visiting the Blackhawks in Chicago, will be nationally televised on the NHL channel. Also, the games start with a 6pm ET match up in Vegas. Keep that in mind, as FanDuel is offering an ‘All Day’ slate, starting with that game, and a ‘Main’ slate, fading that game.
Here’s a look at the NHL schedule for Friday, October 27th:
Avalanche at Golden Knights (6pm ET)
Senators at Devils (7pm ET)
Jets at Blue Jackets (7pm ET)
Blues at Hurricanes (7:30pm ET)
Predators at Blackhawks (8:30pm NHL TV)
Stars at Flames (9pm ET)
We have several top goalies in play tonight. Pekka Rinne is likely facing the Hawks Crawford. Corey has been fairly hot to start the season, but Rinne has struggled, so playing some Hawks tonight may be a good play, but they’ll be expensive.
The Stars have a hot first line, but they’re running into a buzz-saw with Mike Smith in net. Smith is a grisly veteran, who essentially wasted most of his time in the NHL playing for the Coyotes. But now on a better Flames team, Mike is looking sharp in net, and stacking Stars may not be the ideal play.
One of the more difficult options is the Avalanche visiting the Golden Knights in Vegas. That game is difficult for two reasons. The Knights appear to be playing well above expectations, and they’re now down to a 23-year-old rookie in net, after two goalie injuries. But that hasn’t hurt them yet, and that could be a great value play. Speaking of value plays, the Avs have also been playing well above expectations, and have an equally solid chance of pulling off the upset against the Knights. This one is tough, but man is there a ton of value sitting in that game!
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 27th
Tyler Seguin ($8,600) and the Dallas Stars top line have been one of my favorite options to stack. Seguin is averaging over 20 FanDuel NHL points-per-game, and he has Benn to lean on, who’s also averaging over 20 points per game, making them a dominate stacking option for cash games, each night they play.
But I don’t love the match up against Mike Smith tonight, in Calgary. So while it’s hard to do, we’re mostly fading the Stars top line tonight, except for a few cash game plays. Instead, we love the Blue Jackets match up against Steve Mason, at home in Columbus.
Nick Foligno ($6,600) is only averaging 12.23 FanDuel NHL points, per game. But Foligno has three goals and two assists in his five games, including a goal in Winnipeg. The Blue Jackets top line is heating up, and they should perform very well tonight, with an ideal match up at home. The slow start has stymied Nick’s salary to our benefit tonight.
We’re definitely fading the Jets top line, including Mark Scheifele ($7,400) with the bad match up against Bobrovsky. But Jonathan Toews ($6,900) against a struggling Pekka Rinne at home in Chicago is also a great play. Toews is only $300 more than Foligno, he just doesn’t have as much FanDuel NHL point upside potential.
The Calgary Flames are at home, welcoming goalie Kari Lehtonen. This sets the Flames up for an beneficial match up, and Sean Monahan ($7,400) and the Flames top line should have a great night. Monahan has been quite over the last two games, but they were road games against good teams. In the three games prior to that, Sean had three goals, one in each game. Tonight, Monahan should bounce back.
Now let’s take a look at the wings we want to stack along with our centers…
Top FanDuel NHL Wings: Oct 27th
With Foligno as one of our top plays at center, we don’t hesitate to play Artemi Panarin ($7,800). He may seem pricey, only averaging 13.89 FanDuel NHL points-per-game, but Artemi has been consistently hot to start the season. This season resembles Panarin’s hot start with the Blackhawks last year, when he lead in scoring for a few months.
Panarin has three assists in two of the nine games the Blue Jackets play, and while he only has one goal this season, he also has nine assists in nine games, and is piling up shots on goal. A stack with Foligno should yield several points against a terrible Steve Mason tonight.
Sticking with the stacking theme for another top pick, we love Johnny Gaudreau ($7,200) stacked with Monahan. Panarin is priced hire, likely because of the match up, but Gaudreau is one of the best players on the ice tonight. In ten games, Johnny has ten assists and two goals. So like Panarin, he’s piling up points with helpers, but tonight he could be involved in several goals.
Jaden Schwartz ($6,100) is one of my favorite FanDuel NHL plays so far this season, and his salary is juicy tonight, but we hate his match up. The Hurricanes are a sneaky good team, emerging in their conference, and we don’t like the match up with the former Blackhawks net minder, Scott Darling.
Some other great value options are on the board thanks to the Avs and Knights game, but I’m more interested in that game from a defensive or goal-tending perspective. We’ll get to that later. Instead, we’re going to grab some value by sticking to the Flames, and grab Matthew Tkachuk ($4,800) on their second line.
Tkachuk can be all over the play each week with scoring, quite some nights and red hot others. Right now, Matthew is hot, with a goal and two assists over his last two games. He averaged over 20 FanDuel NHL points against the Predators in Nashville and Blues in St. Louis. There is risk Tkachuk could cool off tonight, but for $4.8K, the upside value is enormous.
For another value stack but more scoring consistency, we’ll grab Josh Anderson ($3,600) from the Blue Jackets third line. Getting only around 15 minutes of ice time over the last give games, Anderson has been incredibly consistent, piling up well over 10 FanDuel NHL points-per-game. With the match up the Blue Jackets have tonight, it seems worth the play as he’s likely to continue to roll.
Top FanDuel NHL Defenders: Oct 27th
Few defenders are as rock-solid for FanDuel NHL as Erik Karlsson ($7,300). Erik has been off of the ice recovering from an extensive injury, but finally got back on the ice in mid-October. Since returning, Karlsson clearly didn’t need much time to warm up. In only give games, Erik already has eight assists, and is averaging over 20 FanDuel NHL points per game. I don’t like the Senators match up with Kinkaid tonight, but Karlsson is always a strong lock for cash games, when on the ice.
If you can afford them, Mark Giordano ($5,900) and Dougie Hamilton ($5,800) have been outstanding for NHL DFS this season. They man the Flames top line, and we love stacking the Flames tonight, making them both a top play. However, if you need to save some salary, T.J. Brodie ($4,800) is almost equally as impactful, and worth a pick as well.
Sticking with the stacking theme, getting Seth Jones ($5,100) at this salary level can’t last long. Jones has a quality second half, last season, and is averaging just under 15 FanDuel NHL points per game. Seth leads the top line defenders for the Blue Jackets, and has been very consistent with his scoring this year. Only three of his nine games were below 10 FanDuel NHL points, resulting in 6.4, and two eight point games. If that’s my floor for only $5.1K, I’m taking it with a ceiling closer to 30.
Top FanDuel NHL Goalies: Oct 27th
Before we go into the goalie options we like, let’s start with a quick fade comment. The Flyers moved on from a so-so Steve Mason ($7,300) at the end of last season, and the Winnipeg Jets pounced. But Mason is having an absolutely terrible start to this year, and is in Columbus tonight, facing a tough Blue Jackets offense. Steve is a hard fade tonight in goalie!
Sticking with the game in Columbus, Sergei Bobrovsky ($9,500) is easily the best option for the win, 12 FanDuel NHL points. But the Blue Jackets play solid defense and should have more control of the puck, and that may lower the among of saves we see from Sergei.
This happened earlier in the month, when the Blue Jackets beat the Wild in Minnesota, and ‘Bob’ only had 17 saves, a win, but only 9.6 FanDuel NHL points. While this seems like an obvious play, there’s a lot of point risk for this salary.
Because the Predators and Blackhawks game is going to be very competitive, along with the Blues and Hurricanes game, I’m more intrigued by the Avs visiting the Golden Knights. Yes, there’s risk here as well, but Semyon Varlamov ($8,000) has lost two of his last three starts. And the Knights are hot.
Oscar Dansk ($7,400) has some risk. The 23-year-old has never been dominate at any level, but has 39 saves in 42 shots so far this season, and is 2-0 against the Blackhawks and Blues, two of the better teams in the NHL. Averaging over 20 FanDuel NHL points-per-game, on this salary, is a bargain. We’re going with Dansk as the top goalie option tonight.
So, after reviewing all of our favorite options, here’s an example of a lineup we put together for Oct 27th FanDuel NHL:
C Monahan (CGY $7,200)
C Foligno (CLS $6,600)
W Panarin (CLS $7,800)
W Gaudreau (CGY $7,200)
W Tkachuk (CGY $4,800)
W Anderson (CLS $3,600)
D Jones (CLS $5,100)
D Brodie (CGY $4,800)
G Dansk (VGK $7,400)
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.
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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!