Fantasy Hockey: NHL DFS FanDuel Power Plays for March 2

Welcome Back to the NHL DFS FanDuel Power Plays column. This is a fantasy hockey post focused on top lineup plays each day. We are talking about the Main slate for Saturday, March 2nd 2019.

With four shots already on the board, Alex Ovechkin finally scored during a power play to add 20.5 FanDuel NHL points to our fantasy hockey team on Friday night. We needed that, but it wasn’t really quite enough to put us in many cash positions.

We had several hits and misses on Friday, but the misses were too big. Carl Soderberg only had one shot on goal for 1.6 points, Reilly Smith gave me a goose egg (although I didn’t tout him as much), and Zach Aston-Reese was flat with another 3.2 points.

Travis Sanheim did continue his scoring streak with an assist, but only had 9.6 FanDuel NHL points. Jack Eichel had four shots on goal, three blocked shots, and a goal for the bigger 23.2 point play in the lineup. Eichel is someone I may want to consider for Saturday.

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  to catch late breaking lineup news.

Here’s a look at the NHL schedule for the Main slate on Saturday, March 2nd 2019:

Devils at Bruins 7pm ET

Sabres at Maple Leafs 7pm ET NHL Network

Penguins at Canadiens 7pm ET

Senators at Lightning 7pm ET

Hurricanes at Panthers 7pm ET

Red Wings at Coyotes 8pm ET

Stars at Blues 8pm ET

Wild at Flames 10pm ET

For a Saturday main slate, eight games seems fairly manageable. We can likely grab a decent goalie from one of the 16 teams, and we have plenty of top plays and value plays to consider. Two teams playing on home ice that I like are the Panthers in Florida and the Coyotes in Arizona.

The Blue may continue to be hot on home ice, but the Stars top line makes me pause a bit. After hearing criticism from ownership, the Stars seem to be surging again. The Flames have a favorable match up on home ice. But the Canadiens, Penguins, Sabres, and Maple Leafs are four hard teams to figure out.

Montreal and Toronto should see the most scoring on Saturday night. But, are they worth paying up for the best plays? Maybe for some. The Bruins are also an attractive play on home ice against the Devils. But, they’re also fairly expensive.

Quick Plug: You may have noticed a lot of NHL games are now aired on ESPN+. I have a subscription so I can watch more sports in general, but enjoy the coverage from ESPN+ for Hockey as well. If you’re looking for a cost-effective way to follow more live coverage of the NHL, you can get a trial-subscription here.

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

Steven Stamkos ($8,700) is going to be a chalky play on home ice against a horrendous Senators defense. But I honestly believe there are several options better than Stamkos, and his price tag is just too expensive for the return. FanDuel NHL players, though, are likely drawn to the match-up.

I don’t blame anyone for playing Sidney Crosby ($9,000) right now. But the Canadiens are not an easy team to play on home ice, where their defense, and net-minding, appears to be at its best.

If I’m going to spend over $8K on a center pick Saturday night, it’ll be for Auston Matthews ($8,300) or Jack Eichel ($8,200). Of those two, Eichel is actually the better play. The Sabres are in Toronto against a good Maple Leafs team. But the Leafs will give up some goals, and as we’ve seen lately, Eichel is likely one of the Sabres who scores them.

In the last three games, Jack has at least on goal per game and a total of four in that period. In his last seven games, Eichel has five goals and four assists (nine total points), at least a point in each game. That isn’t surprising considering his four to seven shots on goal per game in the last two weeks.

You can still get a solid shot at 20+ points by grabbing Aleksander Barkov ($7,800) on home ice against the Hurricanes. Granted, the Canes aren’t a team I want to play against lately, they’re red-hot right now. But, so is Barkov.

We’ve touted Sasha often, lately, and he just keeps delivering FanDuel NHL points into our lineups. Aleksander had a monster hat-rick and one assist game against the Canadiens back on February 17th. He piled up 55.7 total points in that game for NHL DFS.

Since that game, Barkov remained hot. Barkov has a point in each of his last seven-straight games. In that time, he has a total of eight goals and six assists, or a total of 14 points and an average of two points (two goals and/or assists) per game. That’s incredible consistent offensive production.

Regardless, of who you pick between Matthews, Eichel, and Barkov, I have so many great players I want at winger that I very likely need some value with my second winger pick. If you grab two of the top center guys for your lineup, you’ll need to go heavy with your value at winger, which isn’t my strategy for Saturday.

Fortunately, Brad Richardson ($3,700) appears to be making an attempt to fill the Derek Stepan void left by Stepan’s injury. Richardson, leading the Yotes second line, has scored at least one goal in two of the last three games. On Thursday night, Brad piled up an amazing four goals against the Canucks on home ice, with six shots, and gave FanDuel NHL players 59.2 points.

Maybe we don’t get quite that haul of points on Saturday night. But, double-digit points is a solid chance and we could even see over 20 points with another decent offensive night by the emerging hot hand for the Yotes.

Fantasy Hockey: NHL DFS FanDuel Power Plays Top Wingers

Alright, the winger position. Normally this is one of the easier positions to figure out. That may be surprising given its the biggest to fill in the lineup, with four spots, but we have so many players to pick through that finding the right combination is usually easy.

Most of the time, my strategy is to pick a top expensive winger, knowing the big-dogs often deliver, then a more expensive mid-salary range guy, followed by mid-salary and value plays. But, I’m taking a different approach on Saturday, thanks mostly to a problem I love that we have now.

That problem is too many great players.

Is Nikita Kucherov ($9,300) worth a top play against the Senators? Hell, yes. And feel free to go that route. But, I actually love four guys with a salary of between $5,900 and $6,600.

Quick math tells you that in order to play all four of those guys, we can’t spend big at the defense and goalie position. We don’t have to. But also, we can’t really go with a guy like Kuch and then add three of the four guys we like. That’s just too expensive.

One stack I’m considering is the Panthers top line. Barkov plays that line with Mike Hoffman ($6,600) and Jonathan Huberdeau ($6,500). That is currently one of the most underrated lines in hockey, impressively productive over the last two weeks.

But, we don’t have to play Barkov to get the greatness from the line. Hoffman and Huberdeau could still land nearly 50 points combined. So, regardless of who I go with my top center pick, I love having both of these Panthers’ wingers in my lineup.

Two other guys I just can’t shake are Alexander Radulov ($5,900) and Jake Debrusk ($6,000).

As I mentioned earlier, the Stars top line is playing very well again. And Radulov has always big a hug contributor on that line. In that last four gams, Rads has two goals and three assist, with at least one of those in all four games. Even in St. Louis, he’s a great play.

Somehow, David Krejci and Jake DeBrusk have developed incredible chemistry on second line of the Bruins, in the last couple of months. As a result, DeBrusk’s fantasy value is rapidly climbing and he should always be a consideration for your NHL DFS lineups.

He’s starting to get a bit pricey, but I know I’m very likely getting double-digit to 25 points with this play on home ice against the Devils. Alright, let’s finally look at a few top picks on defense…

Fantasy Hockey: NHL DFS FanDuel Power Plays Top Defenders

Frankly, the defense position isn’t that difficult for Saturday night. Of any of the more expensive options, Torey Krug ($6,500) and Keith Yandle ($5,700) are the only two really worth their respective FanDuel NHL salaries.

I would lean toward Krug, but I just spent a ton of cash in my lineups. I’d maybe take him if I have Barkov as my top center. Torey has a point in four of the last five games, a power play goal and four assists. That includes two assists against a very good Lightning team on Thursday night.

Yandle’s 12.94 FanDuel NHL point-per-game average is a little misleading. He’s not landing there because he’s had a couple of very big nights. Keith is probably one of the top five or six more consistent fantasy hockey players at the defense position.

Every time the Panthers are on the ice, Yandle is in my group of great plays at defense considerations.

And my top second pick at defense is hopefully, by now, not surprising. Rasmus Dahlin ($4,600) is back on the ice after a disappointing night hosting the Penguins. While that was disappointing, I have to keep playing Dahlin as long as the Sabres are scoring goals at a high value.

Rasmus is a huge part of that offense, and very often on the ice with Eichel. He doesn’t look like a rookie anymore. If you’re getting a little tired of playing Dahlin, two other guys I’d consider for this slate are the Coyotes Oliver Ekman-Larsson ($4,900) and Charlie McAvoy ($4,400).

Fantasy Hockey: NHL DFS FanDuel Power Plays Top Goalies

The two obvious top choices at the goaltender position are Andrei Vasilevskiy ($9,700) and Jordan Binnington ($9,300). Of these two, Vas is a slam-dunk easy top play. Andrei should get the win, has a very solid shot at a shutout on home ice, and…he’s playing the Senators.

Binnington, though, is a more tricky. The rookie net-minder has a much tougher match-up against the Stars top line. That could be good because he should see a high volume of shots and may accumulate a lot of points from saves. But, that could also mean he gets a loss and is much less likely to get a shutout.

Another reason I don’t love Binnington is that Ben Bishop ($8,900) is likely in the cage for the Stars. Bishop is actually one of my favorite sneaky GPP plays. It may seem odd to spend that much cash on a goalie pick for GPP, but he’s going to be very low-owned and has been playing incredible hockey lately. Bishop could lay down 25 to 35 points on Saturday night with a win.

Another safe choice is Tuukka Rask ($8,800). But, if Darcy Kuemper ($7,800) is minding the goal for the Coyotes again on Saturday night, I frankly don’t care about the rest of the options.

Kuemper’s salary is insanely low for his nearly 19 points-per-game. Darcy also has six straight wins, and won eight of his last nine starts. Among those wins was an impressive shutout of the Maple Leafs. And, Kuemper has only given up more than two goals, once (3) in his last six starts.

Fantasy Hockey: FanDuel Power Plays March 2nd Main Slate Summary

There are tons of great goalie options for Saturday night’s Main FanDuel NHL slate. But, none of the options have as great a value as Kuemper. As long as FanDuel keeps Darcy’s salary at that cheap of a price, we must play the man.

At defense, I love Krug but Yandle is also a better value. If I can find a way to afford Krug, he’s my man. If I can’t, I’m just as comfortable pivoting to Yandle. And, my standard Dahlin value play is in my lineup too. Although, you could pivot to Ekman-Larsson or McAvoy if you’re bored of Dahlin.

At the center position, I love Matthews, Eichel, or Barkov in the top center position. I’m probably playing Richardson for value in all formats. That’s a good thing, but I’m struggling to shake a four-man winger combo of Hoffman, Huberdeau, DeBrusk, and Radulov.

With that summary in mind, here’s a look at a sample lineup for the NHL DFS Main slate on Saturday, March 2nd 2019:

C       Jack Eichel ($8,200)

C       Brad Richardson ($3,700)

W     Mike Hoffman ($6,6000

W     Jonathan Huberdeau ($6,500)

W     Jake Debrusk ($6,000)

W     Alexander Radulov ($5,900)

D      Keith Yandle ($5,700)

D      Rasmus Dahlin ($4,600)

G      Darcy Kuemper ($7,800)

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 NHL, NBA, MLB, EPL, PGA, and NASCAR this Spring!