NHL DFS FanDuel Power Plays: October 4th

Welcome back to another NHL DFS Power Plays column. We’re a daily fantasy hockey column focused on top FanDuel NHL plays for your lineups each day. This is the Thursday, October 4th 2018 edition. Opening Night, again for most teams, of the NHL 2018 season.

We had some hits and misses in our sample lineup for last night’s opening NHL DFS play of the season. However, many of our suggested stacks worked out well. We didn’t stack the Caps offense, which turned out to be the big winner of the night. It was hard to tell how they would handle their banner raising in Washington, D.C. Either they would be overwhelmed, or motivated. Clearly, they were motivated.

While Holtby was a great play in goal, 40 FanDuel NHL DFS points, our Frederik Andersen play was cheaper and landed us 31.2 points. I’ll take that each night. We also had John Carlson in our sample lineup, our top defender recommendation. Carlson had a goal, assist, two blocked shots, and each of his points were during a power play giving us over 27 points.

While the Leafs stack sort of worked out well, I would’ve liked to have the Flames stack instead. That was our pivot recommendation. Tavares scored a goal, giving us 24.8 total points, but Mitch Marner was relatively quiet last night, with zero points on a cheap salary.

While the Canucks had a successful 5-2 victory on home ice against the Flames, their top line was quiet. Bo Horvat only had two shots on goal and two blocked shots for 6.4 points. And Brock Boeser gave us our other goose egg. For tonight’s sample lineup, we’re going to avoid gooses eggs, we hope.

Before we get there, a reminder to never take a NHL DFS optimal lineup as ‘bible’ for your personal lineup each day. Use the suggestions as guidance. Also, make sure you follow final lineup thoughts throughout the day on our twitter account @FantasyCPR or me @MattyMcMatt17 look for late breaking lineup news.

Here’s a look at the NHL schedule for Thursday, October 4th:

Bruins at Sabres 7pm ET

Capitals at Penguins 7pm ET ESPN+

Islanders at Hurricanes 7pm ET

Predators at Rangers 7:30pm ET NBC Sports Network

Blackhawks at Senators 7:30pm ET

Blue Jackets at Red Wings 7:30pm ET

Jets at Blues 8pm ET

Coyotes at Stars 8:30pm ET

Wild at Avalanche 9pm ET

Flyers at Golden Knights 10pm NBC Sports Network

Tuesday’s and Thursday’s are typically hockey’s biggest nights. This Thursday is the first after the opening night for the NHL season, last night. It’s also the opening night for many NHL teams this week.

Finding an ideal GPP lineup is easier with ten games, or twenty teams to pick through. However, this often makes cash games more challenging, as you have more combinations of winning lineups. But the exciting part is the lower ownership.

We won’t cover the point scheme again, you can look at our first article for that information. So, let’s start building our NHL DFS optimal lineup by looking at the top centers for this slate…

NHL DFS FanDuel Power Plays: Top Centers

There’s a sexy list of top center options for your NHL DFS lineups on Thursday night. Finding a top talented center is easy. The hard part is narrowing down the best pick. Frankly, you’re going to have about five to ten expensive centers who give you over 15 FanDuel NHL DFS points.

The Coyotes are likely a better team this season, but they gave up over three goals per game last season, 11th worst in hockey. The Yotes are traveling to Dallas to take on a Stars team with a lot of offensive talent on their top line.

As you see in our winger suggestions, we’re high on stacking the Stars tonight. That stack starts with Tyler Seguin ($8,200). He’s pricey, but Tyler often scores at least two points in a game, with a goal and assist. Seguin has two great scoring line-mates on the Stars top lines, consistently improving his odds of adding points with helpers.

We’re not able to afford Seguin in our sample GPP lineup, but he’s worth heavy consideration tonight, especially in cash games.

A more affordable option, but just as dominate a center, is Jack Eichel ($7,800). You’re saving money with Eichel because he scores less often than Seguin, but also has a less talented offensive unit. Still, the Sabres scoring odds increase significantly when Eichel hits the ice.

On paper, the match up for Eichel and the Sabres doesn’t seem ideal. However, the Bruins are vulnerable. Last night, the B’s went to D.C. to get shelled by the Caps, 7-0, after the Capitals Stanley Cup banner raising.

Instead of traveling home to bounce back, they need to lick their wounds and head to Buffalo to face a young, but emerging offense.  Also, the Bruins need to throw their backup goalie, Jaroslav Halak, in net to give Rask a rest after last night.

This is a risky play, especially for cash games, but for GPP lineups it’s ideal. We should see lower ownership of Jack, and he could have as many as 40 points if the Bruins are still struggling tonight.

Instead of digging deep for value with your second center pick, we’re likely going to keep it relatively expensive, and find value in other positions. Like the Coyotes, the Hurricanes struggled to stop teams from scoring last season, also giving up over three goals per game.

Fortunately, the Islanders travel to Charlotte today, and bring a ton of NHL DFS value with them to the ice in North Carolina. With John Tavares now on the Maple Leafs, the door is wide open for Mathew Barzal ($6,600) to rise to the top of the talent chain for the Isles.

Again, this is another risky play, but great for GPP. Barzal had a fantastic season last year, winning the Calder Cup for rookie of the year. Mathew had 85 points, including 63 assists. The risk is related to Tavares.

Now we’ll see if Barzal was good because he was around John, or is he the real deal? Leading the Isles top lines against the Hurricanes Thursday night, we’ll find out. And I’m willing to spend $6,600 of my salary for that tremendous upside.

If you’re looking for a value pick, consider Casey Mittelstadt ($4,400). Likely playing on the Sabres third line Thursday night, Mittelstadt was the eighth overall pick of the 2017 draft, and has enormous potential. Otherwise, I recommend sticking with the more expensive options with so many great plays tonight, and so much value in other positions.

NHL DFS FanDuel Power Plays: Top Wingers

Back to the Stars, even if you’re not plugging an expensive Seguin into your lineup, I’d strongly consider stacking Jamie Benn ($7,900) with Alexander Radulov ($6,300). We’re getting two talented scorers, spending 15 to 20 minutes on the ice tonight, playing in the top regular and power play lines against a team who gives up over three goals per game.

Radulov was a little streaky with his goal-scoring last season, but even when he wasn’t lighting the lamp, he was offering a ton of helpers to Seguin and Benn. For $6,300, that’s a reasonable price to pay for a likely two-point result tonight from Alexander.

Meanwhile, Benn closes last season scoring seven goals in just three games. Jamie is the kind of player who can score a hat-trick several times throughout the season and give you over 40 points. Paired with Eichel’s potential on the same GPP line, this is an exciting play at winger.

Sure, there are tons of other lines to consider, but we think you’re getting the best value with the greatest ceiling stacking Benn with Radulov as your top-two wingers. From there, I’m looking for value next.

This is the hard part. There are so many second and third lines to review among the 20 teams tonight, value options are abundant. But, which one’s play out well?

We mentioned how we liked the Islanders top line against the Hurricanes, even at Carolina. But on the flip side of that game, the Islanders are also giving up an enormous amount of goals over the last year. In fact, last year, the Islanders gave up 293 goals over 82 games, or 3.57 per game. That was the most in the NHL.

So when you see a talented goal-scorer like Justin Williams ($4,700) with a dirt cheap salary playing a porous defense on home ice, you have to consider pouncing. Better, Williams should line up with a talented Jordan Staal on the Canes second regular line, and defender Dougie Hamilton on their second power play line. Each are great at dishing the puck or offering a reflection chance at a goal for Williams.

Next for value, Boone Jenner ($4,500) appears to be buried in the Blue Jackets 3rd line, but he’s the most talented offensive player on that line. Also, Jenner will add ice time to his night playing on the Blue Jackets second power play line. And again, we’re targeting a defense who’s giving up well over three goals per game.

With Williams and Jenner plugged in as value plays in two winger spots, you have plenty of salary left over to play top centers and stack two expensive top-line wingers. Alright, let’s look at a few top picks on defense…

NHL DFS FanDuel Power Plays: Top Defenders

There’s plenty of top talent on defense Thursday night. If you stack your defense with two $5 or $6K players, you’ll want to find more value at center, getting a sub-$5K player. Also, you likely need to play one or two value plays at winger too.

Of this group of time defenders, I like Shayne Gostisbehere ($6,600) and Roman Josi ($6,300) the most. John Carlson ($6,300) could keep his high point-ride going in Pittsburgh, but that’s unlikely. If you’re going to two expensive defender route, consider stacking Josi with P.K. Subban ($6,100).

We stacked the Josi/Subban combination at defense often last season with great success. Roman and P.K. spend a lot of time on the ice for the Predators, and they each can go on goal-scoring runs for the Preds. You’re also assured blocked shots, shots on goal, and at least one assist.

If you’re looking for an expensive defender with a cheap play at the position, you could pick one of the Preds defenders, but I’d rather go with Ghost. The Flyers top scoring defender spends around 25 minutes of his time on the ice each game, has a high chance of scoring each game, and already has a power play assist against the Golden Knights after two games last season.

But if you’re playing Shayne, you’ll want some value to add to the lineup at defender. Also, the path I’m taking for my GPP sample lineup on Thursday night is two cheap defenders. I’ve used this tactic from time-to-time in the past with success.

The basic theory is the two value plays give you nearly ten points each play, with up-side potential. Meanwhile, you use the rest of your salary to pay up for 20+ points in most other positions, getting you near the 150 point range for cash and GPP winners.

So who are my two favorite value plays at defender? We’re starting with our value play last night, Charlie McAvoy ($4,500). While we think the Sabres are a good offensive play against the Bruins back up goalie on the road, we also know the Sabres had the third highest goals-against, 278 in 82 games, last season.

And even though the Bruins didn’t score last night, Charlie was on the ice for over 20 minutes and piled up five blocked shots for eight points.

The other value play is a hot name coming from the Islanders preseason, Ryan Pulock ($4,000). This is another situation where we’re paying a cheap salary for a defender spending over 20 minutes of his time on the ice, while likely also getting around ten points for our NHL DFS FanDuel lineup. The 23-year-old has also looked fantastic in the power play recently, an extra bonus.

NHL DFS FanDuel Power Plays: Top Goalies

Braden Holtby ($9,200) will be an obvious draw again tonight. But I think paying up for the Caps to potentially hit a wall in Pittsburgh in a mistake. Sure, Holtby had 25 saves in a shutout last night. But back-to-back shutouts are unique.

Also, the Caps offense was feeding off of the Cup Banner raising frenzy from the Caps fans last night. Braden and the Caps skaters in front of him will be in a different environment tonight. Fade him.

Sergei Bobrovsky ($9,000) and Tuukka Rask ($8,700) are each taking the night off in a road game for their teams. Bobrovsky’s sitting is a bit of a surprise thought. For that reason, Joonas Korpisalo ($7,600) is a fantastic value play against the Red Wings tonight in Detroit.

Korpisalo was a solid tender last season, and the Red Wings offense has struggled to score goals over the last two seasons. The Blue Jackets are favored, even with Bob off the ice, and with likely around 30 shots on goal from the Red Wings, we could get over 20 NHL DFS FanDuel points from a very cheap goalie in an opening night game.

Aside from the value play with Korpisalo, I like two other top goalie picks tonight. Ben Bishop ($8,700) has a great match up on home ice and Pekka Rinne ($8,600) very likely wins in Madison Square Garden. Between the two, Rinne likely has the higher point total with more shots on goal, and more saves. But Bishop has the best chance for a shutout, and Ben is on home ice. For that reason, I’m tilting the scales towards Bishop.

NHL DFS FanDuel Power Plays: October 4th 2018 Summary

We’re spending heavy on centers tonight, with two young talents Eichel and Barzal in our GPP sample lineup. But we also like the idea of paying up for Seguin, especially if we’ll stack Benn and Radulov in two winger spots. Mittelstadt is a sneaky value play at the center position.

We already mentioned our juicy Benn/Radulov stack at the winger spot. To make them affordable, Justin Williams and Boone Jenner are solid value plays at the position. Their salaries don’t reflect their scoring potential tonight.

If you’re not spending too big at the center and winger positions, stacking Josi and Subban from the Predators top defensive lines is ideal. They’re a unique combination which can get you as much as 40+ NHL DFS FanDuel points.

Gostisbehere is expensive, but also a great play at the defense position. But you’ll need at least one of our top two value plays on defense, between McAvoy and Pulock. At goaltender, Korpisalo is a great value play, and the top picks are between Rinne and Bishop. We’re leaning toward Bishop as the best net-minder pick on Thursday night, but any of those three should get you 20+ points.

With that summary in mind, here’s a look at a sample lineup for the NHL DFS FanDuel on Thursday, October 4th 2018:

C       Jack Eichel ($7,800)

C       Mathew Barzal ($6,600)

W     Jamie Benn ($7,900)

W     Alexander Radulov ($6,300)

W     Justin Williams ($4,700)

W     Boone Jenner ($4,400)

D      Charlie McAvoy ($4,500)

D      Ryan Pulock ($4,000)

G      Ben Bishop ($8,700)

Remaining Salary: $100

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

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