FanDuel NHL Blue Line Power Plays: February 28
By Matt Rogers
Welcome to the FanDuel NHL Blue Line Power Plays column. This is the Wednesday, February 28th edition. We’re a daily fantasy hockey column focused on top FanDuel NHL plays for your lineups each day.
Many of our top plays worked out last night, but non greater than Eric Staal ($7,200). Already on a tear lately, Staal added another hat-trick and two assists to his season, with four shots and a two power play points. If you played Eric, he gave you 59.4 FanDuel NHL points on a modest $7,200 salary.
In fact, if you played Staal with one of our top defensive plays last night, Roman Josi ($6,400), you already had 107.9 FanDuel NHL points with just two players! Josi was lowed owned last night too. With a jaw-dropping five assists, which equals 40 FanDuel NHL points, three blocked shots, two shots on goal, and a power play point, Roman was easily the best play at defense last night.
One of the big misses last night was, again, Mikael Granlund ($7,300) who had two goals and two assists. We’ve avoided Granlund because we’ve seen great returns from Jason Zucker and Eric Staal, but continuing to avoid Mikael while the Wild stay hot is a mistake. The next time they’re on the ice, we may need to stack the three, if we can find the right value to make it work.
One of our best values of the night was Bruins rookie defenseman Charlie McAvoy ($3,800). While McAvoy has been fairly quiet lately, his match up seemed ideal last night, and boy did it pay off on a cheap salary. Charlie had an assist earlier in the game, and ended the match up with the game-winning goal. Along with three shots on goal and four blocked shots, McAvoy ended the night with an awesome 31.2 FanDuel NHL points.
Two other value and favorite top plays of our that worked out was Mark Stone ($7,500) justifying his pick with three shots and an assist for 16 FanDuel NHL points, and Predators winger Craig Smith ($5,500) who has two goals on four shots and 30.4 points.
Moving into Wednesday night’s slate, here’s a look at the NHL schedule for Wednesday, February 28th:
Islanders at Canadiens (7pm ET)
Sabres at Lightning (7pm ET)
Red Wings at Blues (8pm ET NBC SN)
Flames at Avalanche (9:30pm ET)
Rangers at Canucks (10pm ET)
The Canadiens aren’t winning games lately, but it’s not due to lack of defense or goaltending, it’s due to low-scoring. In their last five home games, the Habs are 2-0-3. So they haven’t lost a home game in regulation time over the last five games. But during that time they’ve only given up seven goals, or slightly better than just one goal of offense per game.
That doesn’t bode well for the Islanders who are typically a hot DFS NHL offense to play. In fact, we’re fading them tonight. But the just over two-goals per game scoring from the Canadiens may peak some value interest.
The Sabres are traveling to Tampa where the Bolts anticipate new lines, and new faces, on the ice against the Sabres. Whether they’re in or out of Buffalo, the Sabres have struggled to score, especially without Jack Eichel on the ice. But the Bolts should have a high-scoring result against the Sabres, on home ice.
The Red Wings and Blues are both on a downward spiral this season, even though the Blues were close to the playoffs. However, between the two, the Red Wings are trying to bounce back, while the Blues are trying to figure out their direction after a big trade-away of Paul Stastny.
The Flames are a hot offense on the road, but have struggled at times in this type of environment, lately. Also, the Avalanche are playing well on home ice, but are better with Nathan MacKinnon back on home ice.
Finally, the Rangers are also a team lost throughout the rest of the season, seemingly entering a re-build. And they’re in Vancouver, away from home, facing a Canucks team who tends to play well against teams like the Rangers. We could consider some value from the Canucks as well.
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 28th
Steven Stamkos ($8,800) has a point in five of his last seven games and on home ice against the Sabres, Stamkos is very likely to have 15+ FanDuel NHL points. But we also think red-hot Nathan MacKinnon ($8,300) will have 15+ points, and his salary is $500 cheaper. So you’re getting a better bargain with MacKinnon.
Since returning from an injury, Nathan has four goals and four assists in five games. While the Flames play better on road ice, they’re likely to give up a few goals to MacKinnon’s line in Denver tonight.
Also, Nikita Kucherov is likely out, tonight, with an injury so the Bolts need to adjust their lines. As of right now, it appears likely they’ll move Brayden Point ($6,500) to center the top line with Steven Stamkos taking the right winger position. Given the propensity for Point to score around 15 FanDuel NHL points while on the Bolts second line, Brayden’s value jumps on the top line tonight, against the Sabres on home ice.
To get cheaper, Dylan Larkin ($6,200) has four assists in the last four games, and while he hasn’t provided consistently dominate DFS NHL points over the season, he’s likely to get another 12+ points tonight and his value could be close to Points or MacKinnon’s if he’s able to provide more than two points tonight.
For better value, you could also consider Henrik Zetterberg ($5,800), Bo Horvat ($5,800), or Charles Hudon ($4,700). While we mentioned the Canadiens are struggling to score goals this season, the door opens against the Islanders who have the worst defense in the NHL right now. Hudon has a goal and three assists in the last five games. Zetterberg and Horvat are leading their team’s most productive offensive lines, lately, and have good match ups tonight.
Now let’s take a look at the wings we want to stack along with our centers…
Top FanDuel NHL Wings: Feb 28th
We touched on it a bit with the Hudon value play at center, but we expect the Canadiens top open the scoring door against the Isles on home ice tonight. With that in mind, Max Pacioretty ($6,900) and Brendan Gallagher ($6,800) are solid top plays on home ice tonight.
Gallagher has been very active lately, with a power goal and three assists over the last six games. Pacioretty has been less consistent, but he had a power play goal and assist against the Bolts on home ice on Saturday, and even when not scoring, he can provide eight-plus points with shots and blocked shots.
Whether he’s a second or top pick at winger, Matthew Tkachuk ($6,800) is one of our favorite winger plays each time the Flames are on the ice, home or away, lately. Tkachuk is averaging almost 12.5 FanDuel NHL points-per-game this season, but a good part of that production has been in the second half of the season. In his last seven games, Tkachuk has four goals and four assists, including three power plays goals and plenty of shots. He’s emerging as another top young talent on the Flames.
Most of our center picks are expensive, but there’s mostly mid-salary and value plays at winger tonight, making it easier to build our lineup. J.T. Miller ($5,700) is a 24-year-old talented scorer previously of the Rangers, who is making his Lightning debut tonight on home ice. Miller is currently projected to play with Tyler Johnson ($6,300), and Chris Kunitz ($3,600) on the Bolts third line. But we expect this line to be heavily active both during regular play and during the man advantage. In fact, all three are in play as value picks tonight.
Sticking with the Bolts, who we expect to be very offensively productive tonight, we love the idea of Alex Killorn ($5,100) moving to the top line tonight. In the last three games, Killorn has seen 20+ minutes of ice time, is getting more shots on goal, and has two assists. At this salary, his value is modestly estimated to be around 2x tonight.
Finally, for additional value picks at winger tonight, we like red-hot Sabres top line winger Sam Reinhart ($5,000) and Red Wings second line winger Andreas Athanasiou ($4,000). The later has two goals and two assists in his last four games, and is a sneaky value against a struggling Blues team in St. Louis.
Top FanDuel NHL Defense: Feb 28th
With the Bolts as a chalky but heavy stack tonight, and Victor Hedman ($7,200) getting 8+ points in every game since February 3rd, we’re able to pay up for the top defensive picks tonight, who we believe also have the best value.
In his last twelve games, Hedman has a goal or assist in eight games, and is still climbing over ten-plus FanDuel NHL points due to his high volume of shots on goal and blocked shots. Victor sees between 25 and 30 minutes of ice time each game, and is a big reason the Bolts lines can focus so heavily on their offense.
While the Avalanche have played well at home, the Flames are a dangerous team on the road, so the Avs have their hands full tonight. And with plenty of salary on the table, we’ll grab either Dougie Hamilton ($5,900) or Mark Giordano ($5,800).
Giordano has five assists in the last seven games, in addition to a goal. Hamilton has been offensively quiet over the last two games, but still provided 11.2 FanDuel NHL points last night with six shots on goal and a blocked shot. Also, Dougie has five goals and four assists int he last seven games. Between the two, we like Hamilton the most.
Two of the top value plays at the defense position are Jeff Petry ($4,800) and T.J. Brodie ($4,300). Jeff has been red-hot lately, emerging as the top offensive weapon at the position for the Habs. In the last five games, Petry has two goals and two assists. T.J. is on the Flames second line, and is a good option for the same reason we like Hamilton and Giordano, but he’s less consistent and brings more risk to your lineup.
Top FanDuel NHL Goalies: Feb 28th
Once again the Bolts are on the ice and Andrei Vasilevskiy ($9,300) is a top play leading them onto the ice tonight. Vas has hit the 30+ FanDuel NHL point mark in three of his last seven starts, and is nearly a lock for 25+ points tonight. However, Andrei’s salary is consistently a problem, capping your ability to spread top plays across the other positions.
For that reason, we like the value Jacob Markstrom ($7,700) and Antti Niemi ($7,600) bring to the position tonight. Between the two, Markstrom is less risky, the top goaltender for mediocre Canucks team playing on home ice against a struggling Rangers bunch. But Niemi is a sneaky low-owned play, great for GPP, who could triple is points with a win over the Islanders tonight. However, the Islanders have a dangerous offense, and he could also be on the low side of his 9.65 FanDuel NHL point-per-game average.
So, after reviewing all of our favorite options, here’s an example of a lineup we put together for Wednesday, February 28th:
C MacKinnon (COL $8,300)
C Point (TB $6,500)
W Tkachuk (CGY $6,800)
W JT Miller (TB $5,700)
W Killorn (TB $5,100)
W Athanasiou (DET $4,000)
D Hamilton (CGY $5,900)
D Petry (MON $4,800)
G Markstrom (VAN $7,700)
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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