Fantasy Hockey: NHL DFS FanDuel Power Plays for February 7

Welcome to the NHL DFS FanDuel Power Plays column. This is a fantasy hockey post focused on top lineup plays each day. This edition is focused on the Main slate for Thursday, February 7th 2019.

We’re back to another massive fantasy hockey slate on Thursday night. Much like Tuesday’s slate, we have a ton of options at each position and it may seem overwhelming when trying to decide which path to take with each position. Hopefully I can map out a few winning paths for you to cash your FanDuel NHL lineups by Friday morning.

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 the Main slate on Thursday, February 7th 2019:

Hurricanes at Sabers 7pm ET

Penguins at Panthers 7pm ET

Islanders at Devils 7pm ET

Kings at Flyers 7pm ET

Avalanche at Capitals 7pm ET ESPN+

Jets at Canadiens 7:30pm ET

Ducks at Senators 7:30pm ET

Golden Knights at Red Wings 7:30pm ET

Blues at Lightning 7:30pm ET

Stars at Predators 8pm ET

Oilers at Wild 8pm ET

Canucks at Blackhawks 8:30pm ET

Sharks at Flames 9pm ET ESPN+

Blue Jackets at Coyotes 9pm ET

That’s fourteen games, 28 teams, or 28 goaltenders to consider. For Tuesday’s slate, we took some chances with picks that didn’t play out as planned. Although, several of our picks worked out as well.

The bigger disappointment on Tuesday were picks like Jeff Petry, Max Domi, and Brock Boeser who are typically consistent FanDuel NHL double-digit point plays. It didn’t work out that way. I didn’t write a post for Wednesday, but I took a more aggressive route going with a lot of bigger horses, along with some cheap risky value plays. That paid off nicely.

For Thursday, we may not have to take as much risk with the value plays. For whatever reason, FanDuel NHL has several very solid plays for a very cheap price, which allows us to grab many of the big horses again. This should be a fun slate!

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So, let’s start building our NHL DFS optimal lineup by looking at the top centers for this slate…

Fantasy Hockey: NHL DFS FanDuel Power Plays Top Centers

You don’t need to spend a ton of salary on Thursday night to have a great FanDuel NHL point return. My top three favorite plays start with Jack Eichel ($7,700), Jonathan Toews ($7,500), and Evgeny Kuznetsov ($7,200).

Eichel often performs well at home, has a good match-up against the Hurricanes on home ice, and has been heating up lately. In fact, Eichel has at least a point (goal or assist) in five of his last six games, only missing out against the Stars in Dallas.

In his last two home games, he has a goal and two assists against a better Blackhawks team (lately) and a solid Wild defense and net-minding group. Kuznetsov isn’t as offensively dominate as Eichel, but he’s playing similarly, and is just as good of a pick but a better value, being $500 cheaper.

But of that three, I love Toews the most. I’ve talked about Toews and the Blackhawks often over the last couple of weeks. That is because after the Blackhawks seemed to be plummeted during coaching changes, they now seemed to have leveled of and their top performers are now playing better hockey than we’ve seen in almost two years.

Some of that has to do with the younger guys on the team emerging. We’ll get to that later. But as a result, Toews is now already into his best season in two years. In the last five games, Jonathan has five goals and seven assists, and has a very good match up on home ice against the Canucks.

If any of my top three seem just a tad too expensive, go with Ryan O’Reilly ($7,000) again on Thursday night. I know, I know…but they’re playing the Bolts in Tampa. Yes, that scares me a little bit away from O’Reilly as well. But he’s currently one of the most consistently solid centers in all of hockey, so the opponent is irrelevant right now.

You could try going with a combination of any of these four top centers, and believe it or not it’s affordable on Thursday. But, I’d rather grab one and stick Dylan Strome ($5,000) next to them. That way you have plenty of cash left to get two decent, but not too cheap, value plays at winger while also grabbing two big horses.

Wait, why Strome? Remember how I said some of the Blackhawks young talent is finally emerging? Well the former Coyote is one of them! Strome, the third overall pick during the 2015 NHL draft, is becoming a major force on the Hawks second line, especially over the last three weeks.

Since January 20th, Dylan has three goals and five assists in just five games. He’s averaging over 15 minutes of ice time, as a result, and is also laying down for blocked shots. This isn’t just a solid double-digit FanDuel NHL point play, Strome could get you around 30 points with a good night o home ice.

Fantasy Hockey: NHL DFS FanDuel Power Plays Top Wingers

Before we get to some of the top options at winger, I wanted to identify the value plays so I knew how much FanDuel NHL cash I had left over to make my moves at the biggest position in your lineup.

You can probably find some decent dirt-cheap picks on Thursday, but most come with a solid amount of risk as well. I’d prefer to stick to two picks in the low $4K to low $5K range, which still gives me plenty of salary to spend on the top two picks. That’s mostly due to the value we’ll see at goalie on Thursday night.

I like four options for value plays. Travis Konecny ($5,200) is finally over the $5K salary hump and his salary is very likely to continue to climb. Now is a great time to grab him, while he continues to fly around the ice on a hot Flyers team’s top line.

Timo Meier ($5,400) is in a similar salary range. I won’t go into too much detail because we’ve been talking about Timo all season, but I still think his salary is too cheap. He’s a constant goal-scoring option who also gets a solid volume of assists playing on one of hockey’s best lines.

For cheaper options, you should consider Frank Vatrano ($4,800) or Dominik Kahun ($4,300). Vatrano was in our post on Tuesday, and rewarded us with yet another double-digit point night. Frank has a solid match-up on home ice Thursday.

Meanwhile, Kahun is another one of those young Blackhawks players who’s emerging as a big offensive threat. Playing on the second regular, and now power play, line, Dominik has a power play goal and three assists in the last two games.

These plays, along with the value we’ll see later on at defense and goalie, allow us to take our pick of some of the best winger options of the Thursday night slate.

If you want to go for a true four-man Blackhawks stack, Patrick Kane ($9,200) continues to be red-hot, but boy is he expensive. I think you’re just as likely to get as many, if not more, points from the often talked about Artemi Panarin ($7,900).

The Blue Jackets are trying to figure out what to do with Panarin right now. The Bread Man appears to want to go elsewhere, so it’s possible he’s traded any day now. With that in mind, you do have to be ready to pivot away from Artemi if that occurs. But in the meantime, he’s red-hot and has a great match up in the desert tonight.

Leon Draisaitl ($7,500) is cheaper than Kane and Panarin, and you can afford to play him as a second winger pick on Thursday. Considering his current scoring surge, that’s an intriguing option. In the past five games, Draisaitl has seven goals, four during the power play, a ton of shots on goal and is averaging almost 30 FanDuel NHL points-per-game. Put him in your lineup!

Alright, let’s finally look at a few top picks on defense…

Fantasy Hockey: NHL DFS FanDuel Power Plays Top Defenders

With so many teams on the ice Thursday night, we have a larger variance of salaries than you’ll usually see at the defense position. Depending on how much value you plug into your center and winger positions, it’s feasible to grab at least one top defensive play.

Erik Karlsson ($7,200) is likely off the ice tonight, but you could consider playing Brent Burns ($7,700). Personally, I’m staying away from Burns versus Mark Giordano ($5,900), as intriguing as it sounds, because you have too many other similar potential FanDuel NHL point outcomes at this position for a cheaper price.

For example, while he hasn’t been scoring many goals lately, Jacob Trouba ($5,800) has six assists in the last five games. Even more appealing to me about Trouba is his shot volume. He’s consistently getting around three to four shots on goal per game, which likely will lead to some scoring soon. Add that to his two or more blocks per game and you have a solid 15 to 25 point play.

If you’re not convinced with Trouba, two other more common goal scorers around the same value are Seth Jones ($5,800) and Jared Spurgeon ($5,600). Jones and Spurgeon each have solid match ups on Thursday night. Seth is playing similar hockey to Jacob lately, has gone on scoring runs this season, and Jared had two goals last night.

Picking any three of those top defenders should work with with a cheaper Thomas Chabot ($4,800). This is another situation where the FanDuel NHL salary is a head-scratcher for me.

Chabot has had some injury issues, but when he’s on the ice he has been a dominate fantasy hockey force. And last night, Thomas got back into the scoring swing of things with a goal against the Maple Leafs. He’s heating up again, and now is a great time to play him on home ice against a terrible Ducks team.

Fantasy Hockey: NHL DFS FanDuel Power Plays Top Goalies

Look, there are a lot of great goalie options for FanDuel NHL on Thursday night. Robin Lehner ($8,600) continues to be a reasonably priced dominating goalie. Carey Price ($8,900) and Andrei Vasilevskiy ($9,200) are each playing at an elevated level lately. But, I don’t think you need to pay this much for a 25 to 30 FanDuel NHL point return, while having a shot at shutout points.

There are plenty of mid-$8K options too, but frankly, I have two cheaper picks I keep coming back to in every lineup I build.

Joonas Korpisalo ($7,600) could be in goal for the Blue Jackets on Thursday night. Sergei Bobrovsky ($8,100) continues to struggle between the pipes and he was just in goal on Tuesday night. It’s not certain he’ll start, yet, but if he gets the call, I love the value Joonas gives your fantasy hockey lineups against the Yotes in Arizona.

An even cheaper play, though, is Anthony Stolarz ($7,000) on home ice for the Flyers against the Kings. I’m going with this option in the sample lineup you’ll see at the end of this post.

Yes, there is some perceived risk here. The Kings are playing (slightly) better hockey lately, the Flyers eventually have to lose, and Stolarz has been up and down this season. But, to counter that, the Kings aren’t a good team this year, the Flyers are on an eight-game winning streak, and Stolarz just shut out the Rangers, in New York, with 38 saves.

I’m will to bet Anthony and the Flyers play another good game against a vulnerable team on their own ice Thursday. And at least getting the win from the goalie pick using a very cheap $7K salary is a great way to build an awesome FanDuel NHL lineup.

Fantasy Hockey: FanDuel Power Plays February 7th 2019 Summary

At the goalie position, we’re going with Korpisalo or Stolarz, and getting a ton of value in return. Hopefully, either pick gives us 25 to 30 points while retaining $1K to $1.5K in FanDuel NHL salary to make big plays across the rest of the lineup.

Fortunately, the defense picks are also very reasonably priced on Thursday night. I’m comfortable paying under $6K for Trouba, Jones, or Spurgeon and adding a very cheap $4.8K Chabot to the defense list.

Those value plays make it easy to go with Toews, O’Reilly, Kuznetsov, or Eichel as my top center picks, along with the young Strome on the Hawks second line. Kahun and Konecny are two young value plays at winger, and now I have plenty of cash to add Panarin, Draisaitl, or maybe even Kane (if I found more value).

With that summary in mind, here’s a look at a sample lineup for the NHL DFS FanDuel Main slate on Thursday, February 7th 2019:

C       Jonathan Toews ($7,500)

C       Dylan Strome ($5,000)

W     Artemi Panarin ($7,900)

W     Leon Draisaitl ($7,500)

W     Travis Konecny ($5,200)

W     Dominik Kahun ($4,300)

D      Jacob Trouba ($5,800)

D      Thomas Chabot ($4,800)

G      Anthony Stolarz ($7,000)

Remaining Salary: $0

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!