FanDuel NHL Blue Line Power Plays: February 20

Welcome back to the FanDuel NHL Blue Line Power Plays. This is the Tuesday, February 20th edition. We’re a daily fantasy hockey column focused on top FanDuel NHL plays for your lineups each day.

When making suggestions, each day, for FanDuel NHL optimal lineups, you will win some and lose some. Last night we had both types of picks within our article and it was a rough three-game slate for us. While we had some great suggestions within the column, our example lineup bombed with a 61.6 FanDuel NHL point result. However, if we swapped in a couple of the suggestions within the article, we could’ve at least hit some cash games.

Sometimes hockey goalies surprise you and ‘go off’ on great runs. Two recent examples are the back-to-back shutouts form the Islanders two goaltenders Jaroslav Halak and Thomas Greiss. However, that is a drastic example and considering they were the only two shutouts each goalie had all season, it was nearly impossible to predict those outcomes.

That being said, we definitely didn’t predict last night’s outcome for the Ducks. 24-year-old starting Ducks Goaltender John Gibson shut out the Golden Knights in Vegas with 13 saves, then was injured. Ryan Miller then entered the game, and made additional 20 saves for the Ducks, on 20 shots. By the end of the game, the Ducks had a two-goalie shutout of a very good Golden Knights team, on road ice.

One of our top goalies of the night was Marc-Andre Fleury, and with the Ducks shutout, he missed out on the 12 FanDuel NHL points for the win. Even worse, Fleury only saw 20 shots on goal and had 18 saves for a low 6.4 FanDuel NHL point result. That wasn’t the outcome we were expecting.

However, we were also high on Pekka Rinne last night, and with 36 saves and a 5-2 win over the Senators, Rinne had a solid 32.8 FanDuel NHL point outcome. That is what we were expecting. The comparison between Fleury and Rinne is a good summary of our most of our picks went last night.

Now, Let’s take a look at the NHL schedule for Tuesday, February 20th:

Panthers at Maple Leafs (7pm ET)

Blue Jackets at Devils (7pm ET)

Canadiens at Flyers (7pm ET)

Lightning at Capitals (7pm ET)

Predators at Red Wings (7:30pm ET)

Sharks at Blues (8pm ET)

Kings at Jets (8pm ET)

Bruins at Oilers (9pm ET)

Avalanche at Canucks (10pm ET)

After a split three-and-three game slate day on Monday, we’re back to a fuller nine game slate for Tuesday night. Tuesday and Thursday night’s are typically the bigger nights on the NHL schedule each week, as the NBA is often dealt a smaller slate on those days. The bigger NHL slates can be exciting because you may create many different winning lineup combinations, but for that same reason, it can be harder to cash and winning a GPP is more difficult.

After enjoying tremendous success on their Canadian road trip over the last couple of weeks, the Panthers ran into a wall in Winnipeg. Now they travel to Toronto, where they’re facing another solid team. However, the Maple Leafs have a great offense, and tremendous goaltending, but their defense isn’t as rock-solid is the Jets looked over the weekend.

The Devils are currently in a playoff spot, but the Blue Jackets would take a lot of ground from them with a win in New Jersey. They are two inconsistent teams battling for a wild card spot. Meanwhile, the Flyers are struggling to keep goaltenders healthy, so that could be an interesting twist in tonight’s hosting of the Canadiens.

The Caps host the Bolts tonight, two of the top five teams in the Eastern Conference. I wouldn’t touch either goalie tonight, but in an offensive comparison, it’s easy to see the Lightning may have an advantage in Washington, D.C. But the Predators have much more of an advantage against the Red Wings in Detroit.

The Sharks and Blues are two teams struggling to build an offense as we approach the playoff race part of the season. But the Jets are flying high after they dumped seven goals on the Panthers in Winnipeg, so it may be hard for the Kings to bounce back tonight.

The Oilers defense and penalty kill has been horrendous in Edmonton this season, which means stacking the Bruins will have a favorable outcome. And while the Avalanche have been strong at home, they struggle on the road and both the Avs and the Canucks are in play for our NHL DFS optimal lineups.

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 NHL DFS optimal lineup by looking at the top centers for this slate…

Top FanDuel NHL Centers: Feb 20th

If you can afford either, Steven Stamkos ($8,800) and Patrice Bergeron ($8,300) are great plays tonight. Stamkos may not seem as obvious, but the Capitals are struggling on defense, and in goal, even on home ice lately. Steven also has three goals in his last two games, and has been a season-long top ten NHL points player this season. Bergeron is more obvious, playing against an Oilers team who’s dreadful on defense, and killing the power play, in Edmonton.

We don’t love the Jets match up on home ice against the Kings, and likely Jonathan Quick in goal. Quick and the Kings have been solid on the road lately, but Mark Scheifele ($8,000) has been playing elevated hockey lately against all sorts of opponents. In his last four games, Scheifele has three goals and five assists and is averaging almost 30 FanDuel NHL points-per-game over the last week.

Very much like the Stamkos and Bergeron combination, Sean Couturier ($7,600) and Aleksander Barkov ($7,400) are both great plays tonight for different reasons. The Maple Leafs are playing well this season, and have good goaltenders. But the Leafs aren’t playing well on defense and are allowing too many shots on goal each game.

That bodes well for Barkov, who has five goals and five assists in the last seven games. Couturier has 59 points in 59 games, 29 assists and 30 points. The Canadiens are playing dreadful hockey lately and it’s not only likely for Sean to get a goal tonight, he could be on the board two or more times with the Flyers offense firing right now.

If you need to dip further into salary, toward the mid-range, for your first, second, or both picks, we love Nico Hischier ($6,300) and Bo Horvat ($5,600) at center tonight. Hischier is becoming well known to DFS NHL players recently. The Devils top-line center was recently named first star of the week, last week, and has a goal in each of his last four games, along with four assists in his last five games.

Horvat was a tremendous rookie emerging for the Canucks last week. This season, Bo has struggled with some injury concerns. But over the last six games, Horvat appears to be heating up, with three goals and three assists during that time, pushing his average FanDuel NHL point-per-game to nearly 12 for the season. Bo also has a favorable match up on home ice tonight.

If you’re really in need of some value and can stomach risk with your second pick at center, Flyers rookie Nolan Patrick ($4,300) could stay hot on home ice against the Habs tonight. Wayne Simmonds was recently placed on the IR, which makes us nervous with Patrick leading this second line, but in his last two games, with 14 minutes of ice time per game, Nolan as a goal and assist and three total shots.

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

Top FanDuel NHL Wings: Feb 20th

It’s probably impossible to stack Stamkos and Nikita Kucherov ($9,000) tonight, they’re both very expensive, but if you can find enough value in the center, winger, and defensive picks, it’s worth considering. The Capitals continue to struggle on defense in the Capital One Area lately, and Holtby seems very off lately. Meanwhile, Kucherov has four goals and seven assists in the last six games. He’s clearly hot!

Brad Marchand ($8,100) and Blake Wheeler ($7,800) have similar stories to Bergeron and Scheifele on their top lines at center. The Bruins have a very favorable match up in Edmonton tonight. While they’ll be chalky, Marchand could put up 30 to 40 Fanduel NHL points. Mark and Blake have a tough match up on home ice tonight, but they’re both on fire lately. Wheeler now has two goals and nine assists in his last seven games.

If you’re like us and you don’t like the risk Wheeler has with his match up, a great pivot is to Flyers captain Claude Giroux ($7,800). The Canadiens have been dreadful lately, and especially bad away from Montreal. Meanwhile, Gee has five goals and six assists in his last six games. That’s nearly two points, or over 20 FanDuel NHL points-per-game in the last two weeks.

We probably sound like a broken record with Mitchell Marner ($6,600) but that speaks to his tremendous consistency over the last month. Even better, Marner is red-hot on home ice this season, and they welcome a Panthers team who just gave up seven goals to the Jets in Winnipeg. Especially in cash games, Mitch is a must-start tonight.

Slightly cheaper than Marner but also hot since the movement to the Flyer stop line, Travis Konecny ($6,200) has come a long way since his mid-$4K priced salary earlier in the season. Over his last six games, Konecny has four goals and five assists, and is a perfect stack with Grioux. But you can save even more salary if you grab another consistent favorite of ours Yanni Gourde ($5,700).

We’ve been hot on Gourde for a while, and there’s no reason to back off now. As we’ve mentioned multiple times, the Bolts have a favorable offensive match up. Like Konecny, both Gourde and the Bolts have gotten better with his involvement on the top line. In the last eight games, Yanni has five goals and six assists. At worst, Yanni will have nearly ten points with so much involvement on the ice tonight.

Aside from Barkov, we haven’t talked about the Panthers offense too much tonight, but we still like Evgenii Dadonov ($5,400) again. Even against the Jets, Dadonov had an assist and two shots for 11.7 FanDuel NHL points. In fact that was his worst result in the last four games, where he scored four goals and had a total of two helpers.

Finally, for value we mulled several thoughts, but keep coming back to Mikkel Boedker ($3,800). This may seem like a random pick, and in some ways it is, but Boedker has four goals in the last three goals, as well as an assist. The Sharks are in Saint Louis tonight, and don’t have an ideal match up, but Boedker is red-hot right now and could at least provide another assist with a few of the Sharks goals tonight.

Top FanDuel NHL Defense: Feb 20th

You may have noticed we didn’t touch on the Predators offense much, with a great match up in Detroit tonight. The Preds offensive productivity has been moving among the various lines, and among the players on each line, and it’s very difficult to predict which center or winger will be hot tonight, with so much inconsistency.

However, on the defensive side of the lineup, PK Subban ($6,100), Roman Josi ($5,900), and Ryan Ellis ($5,200) consistently have heavy involvement in the Preds ice time but also with their scoring. We were high on Subban last night and he only had eight points, but that was with four shots and a blocked shot, not even providing an assist or scoring, which he has been doing lately.

After ten-plus FanDuel NHL point results in each of his last six games, we’re accepting that Josi is finally back to his early season production, which means he’s likely to continue to provide assists, five or more shots, and several blocked shots for around 15 FanDuel NHL points each night.

Roman is playing on the Preds top line with Ellis who had a power play goal and assist last night, for 25.8 FanDuel NHL points. In fact, Ryan has four assists in the last seven games. Stacking Ellis and Josi, again, tonight is a great option.

With Brent Burns ($7,400) dealing with an undisclosed injury, Victor Hedman ($7,000) and Shayne Gostisbehere ($6,600) are the top two plays on defense tonight. Hedman is finally re-emerging as the Burnsy-like beast ice who’s covering every state on the sheet.

Ghost is in the similar position, but he’s providing significant assists lately, nine in the last seven games. Ghost is also taking a heavy volume of blocked shots and is getting several sharp shots from the point each game. But if you’re looking for some more value, take a shot at Tyler Myers ($5,000) who has five assists in the Jets last two games.

Top FanDuel NHL Goalies: Feb  20th

In short, we hate this slate for the goalie options. Many of these plays cancel each other out because of the match ups. Some of the plays we do like seem too pricey, like Andrei Vasilevskiy ($9,200). Pekka Rinne ($8,900) is also an obvious top play against the Red Wings in Detroit, but with so many games played tonight, there has to be better value on the board.

Carter Hutton ($8,700) had been one of our favorite low-to-mid $8K plays, but he’s done so well lately, he’s getting priced out of ownership. Also, Hutton and the Blues have a tough match up against the Sharks, even on home ice. Jonathan Quick ($8,600) and Frederik Andersen ($8,500) could each pull of a wing tonight, as they’re both playing well, but there’s too much risk with their opponents on the ice.

In stead, we keep coming back to either Anton Khudobin ($8,300) or Connor Hellebuyck ($8,200). Both have risk, as the Oilers have been tricky, but still inconsistent, on home ice and the Kings have been solid on the road this month. However, both are set up to see enough shots to get 30+ saves and a win, for around 30 to 40 FanDuel NHL points.

For a sneaky value pick, especially for GPP plays, consider the Flyers rookie net-minder Alex Lyon ($7,300). The risk is obvious, but Lyon did a great job filling in for Neuvirth against the Rangers over the weekend, and he’s set up for a win on the cheapest goalie salary you’ll find tonight.

So, after reviewing all of our favorite options, here’s an example of a lineup we put together for Tuesday, February 20th:

C     Barkov (FLA $7,400)

C     Horvat (VAN $5,600)

W   Giroux (PHI $7,800)

W   Gourde (TB $5,700)

W   Dadonov (FLA $5,400)

W   Boedker (SJ $3,800)

D    Josi (NSH $5,900)

D    Ellis (NSH $5,200)

G    Hellebuyck (WPG $8,200)

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: NHL Trade Deadline Activity

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!