We have a short five-game slate on this Monday night, but it has a lot of expensive players. Let’s look at what other NHL DFS picks this slate entails.Â
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NHL DFS Picks: Center
Ryan O’Reilly (STL vs. FLA): DraftKings – $4,800; FanDuel – $6,600
After going with a stacked top line for a few weeks, the Blues have gone back to separating their four top healthy forwards across the top two lines, which means a second line of Sanford-O’Reilly-Perron.
With Florida in town, the matchup is generally a good one for St. Louis. Matching up against the top line specifically has been fortuitous for opposing lines: the trio of Barkov-Huberdeau-Dadonov has an expected goals against rate this season of 2.6 and an actual goals against rate of 3.1. Both are considerably worse than the league average, making this a good spot for O’Reilly and his line mates.
Shake-ups to the Blues lineup might not mean a top-line matchup for O’Reilly and company, but even the second line of Vatrano-Haula-Hoffman has been about average defensively, whether as a trio or when looking at just the duo of Vatrano-Hoffman. Regardless of which line O’Reilly gets, this is a good matchup for O’Reilly, and he’s fine as a one-off in any format.
William Karlsson (VGK at EDM): DraftKings – $5,400; FanDuel – $6,400
The injury to Mark Stone puts a damper on what was a great second line for Vegas. He’s been replaced by Nicolas Roy, which is clearly a big downgrade. All the same, Karlsson is a talented forward, and he still has Max Pacioretty on the other wing.
Tonight specifically, it’s about the matchup with the Oilers, and Connor McDavid in particular. For whatever reason, McDavid’s defensive impacts have been atrocious for years. This shows in his line stats, as the duo of McDavid-Kassian, Edmonton’s top line and the matchup for Karlsson and company, has an expected goals against rate of 2.7 per 60 minutes and an actual goals against rate of 3.3. The sample including Ryan Nugent-Hopkins is too small, but he can’t single-handedly drag a line from atrocious defensive numbers to respectable ones. They’re obviously talented offensively, but they also aren’t shy about giving it back defensively.
Stone not being in the lineup makes it easier to stomach Karlsson as a one-off tonight, but that also brings down the overall impact of the line. All the same, it’s a good matchup and Stone not being around should keep ownership down.
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NHL DFS Picks: Winger
Jeff Skinner (BUF vs. WSH) – DraftKings – $4,500; FanDuel – $4,900
It only took 80 percent of the season, but Buffalo has finally put their 40-goal scorer and four-time 30-goal scorer on the top line. It’s absolutely incredible that it took until the second week of March for this to happen, but I digress.
The line of Skinner-Eichel-Reinhart was wondrous in 2018-19, putting up an expected goals scored rate of 2.9 per 60 minutes, which led to 3.3 actual goals per 60 minutes. There was a reason that Skinner had a career year last season. They even moved Skinner back to the top power play unit, after spending a lot of time on the second unit recently. The glow-up for Skinner is real.
More than anything, though, it’s about the matchup tonight. The Capitals are in town, and they’re quietly a very poor defensive team. Since the calendar turned to 2020, Washington is 24th by expected goals against per 60 minutes (worse than Los Angeles and Detroit), and 26th by actual goals against, worse than Ottawa, Chicago and New Jersey. Washington may be a playoff team, but their defensive metrics are among the dregs of the league.
Skinner is fine as a one-off in any format tonight as he matches up with Washington’s top line.
Martin Frk (LAK vs. COL): DraftKings – $4,200; FanDuel – $3,200
When looking at bad offensive teams, it’s important to identify who could bring value all by themselves due to their offensive skill set. In recent memory, that include Andreas Athanasiou when he was still with Detroit, Brady Tkachuk and Anthony Duclair in Ottawa, Zach Werenski in Columbus, and so on. One example that fits this mold is Frk.
It’s important to separate what makes him good for fantasy from everything else. He’s a guy who has found himself on waivers more than once and that’s why he’s in Los Angeles now. What makes him appealing for fantasy is his shot; by all scouting reports and from what I’ve watched, his shot is absolutely wicked. He has a great release and great velocity, he’s just not a volume shooter, and the rest of his game needs work.
Colorado is a good defensive team but the second line, Frk’s matchup, has been run over in a small sample to the tune of over 70 shot attempts and 2.5 expected goals against per 60 minutes. Frk is simply a one-off for tournaments; his shot rate is too low for reliability in cash games. His price on FanDuel is particularly appealing, making him a favorite NHL DFS pick on that site.
NHL DFS Picks: Defensemen
Oliver Ekman-Larsson (ARI at WPG): DraftKings – $4,800; FanDuel – $5,200
Generally speaking, facing Winnipeg is a great matchup for teams. Even with Connor Hellebuyck — a front-runner for the Vezina Trophy as goalie of the year — in net for much of the season, Winnipeg sits 12th by goals allowed per 60 minutes. They’re so bad defensively that even having arguably the best goalie in the league this year can’t make them top-10 by goals against.
That goes double for the penalty kill, where the Jets are 27th by both expected goals against and actual goals against. They don’t take a lot of penalties, but the ones they do take are hard for them to kill off. That’s good news for Ekman-Larsson, who is running the top power play unit for the Coyotes.
Ekman-Larsson’s issue is that he doesn’t shoot or block a lot, so he does have a reasonably low floor. That does not make him appealing for cash games, so this is more as a one-off for tournaments, or part of some Coyotes power play stack.
Oscar Klefbom (EDM vs. VGK): DraftKings – $6,200; FanDuel – $5,300
Klefbom recently returned to the Edmonton lineup and it looked like they were easing him in. He played just 22 minutes after missing three weeks due to injury, before which he was regularly playing 24-25 minutes a night. It’s doubtful he will get to the monster minutes he was playing earlier in the year, but he doesn’t need to either.
Behind Washington, Vegas is the most-penalized team on the slate tonight. They are just outside the top 10, more towards the middle of the league, but relative to everyone else tonight, that’s a bonus. What’s more is that they’re still without Mark Stone, one of their most reliable penalty killers. That’s good news for an Edmonton power play that is blowing every other team out of the water; they’re first by a considerable margin in goals per 60 minutes.
Not wanting to use Klefbom is reasonable given his recent return and potentially lower minutes, but I think there’s an opportunity here for a guy on a great power play unit in a decent power play matchup. He’s pretty cheap on FanDuel, all things considered.
Stacks
BUF1 –Â Skinner-Eichel-Reinhart
As mentioned in the section on Skinner, the top line was very good at five-on-five last year, so there’s good reason to think they’ll be good again now. What makes this matchup particularly appealing is facing the top line from Washington of Ovechkin-Kuznetsov-Wilson. That top line has been an affront to defensive ability this year, posting an expected goals against rate of 2.9 per 60 minutes, considerably worse than average. It’s a great spot for the top Sabres.
STL3 –Â Bozak-Thomas-Parayko
There are a lot of expensive options for a small five-game slate. We need to look for cheap stacks elsewhere to fit with these expensive options, and St. Louis’s third line is one of those stacks. Their offensive metrics are not very good, but their actual goals scored sits at 3.7 per 60 minutes this season, and facing Florida is a great matchup for them. I have added defenseman Colton Parayko over the third forward Alex Steen for an added focus on the second power play unit, but just use Steen instead.
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