Nearly all NHL teams are in action today with a 12 game schedule, which includes three afternoon games. Most of the games have major playoff implications as the stretch run begins towards the Stanley Cup playoffs, with just four weeks left in the regular season. With so many games, there are a lot of teams and players to target in daily fantasy for both cash games (50/50, head-to-head) and GPP tournaments. As always, we’ll analyze all the matchups and narrow things down for building winning lineups in FanDuel today.

Today’s article will provide analysis for the teams in action, top teams to target for daily fantasy, recommend players for FanDuel, and even sample lineups that could be used to help build ones for tonight’s play.

Top Team to Target Tonight for Daily Fantasy Hockey

New York Rangers – The Rangers are huge favorites against the Sabres on Saturday night, and their players will heavily owned in daily fantasy hockey. Buffalo is well known as the worst team in the league both offensively and defensively and they’ve been consistently bad all season long, including a five game losing streak at the moment and being outscored 20-9. The Rangers are 12-1-2 in their past 15 games, and that streak has allowed them to rise to the top of the Eastern Conference, and compete for home ice advantage through the playoffs. They’ve been getting balanced scoring across three different lines, so that does make things a bit difficult for picking Rangers players in your lineups. For cash games it would be a good strategy to pick players across the top two lines, and for tournaments any of their lines could be stacked together.

Recommended Players for FanDuel

TOP GOALTENDER PLAYS

Brian Elliott ($9,100) – Today is a bit unique as all the higher priced goaltenders have relatively tough matchups, while there are a few value goaltenders that have the best matchups (Lack, Vasilevskii and Skapski). The question is whether you trust them in your cash game lineups, and if you do then you can load up your offense. If you want to go with a more proven goaltender instead, Elliott is the best choice tonight. The Blues are a decent sized favorite at home to the Wild, who played and lost last night. Elliott has been solid all season long with a 2.14 GAA and .922 SvPct. 

TOP LEFT WINGER PLAYS

Rick Nash ($8,800) – Nash should be the player that’s highest owned in daily fantasy hockey tonight, considering the matchup and his consistency throughout the year. Nash is one of the top players in the league this year, ranking 2nd in goals (with 39), 3rd in shots on goal (248), 7th in plus/minus (+24) and 12th in points (62). In two previous games against Buffalo this season he has two goals, two assists, eight shots and a +2 rating, and he’ll look to add to those tallies tonight.

Jonathan Drouin ($3,400) – Drouin hasn’t had the ‘rookie of the year’ type season that many expected, but he has shown flashes of potential at different times. With the injury to Ondrej Palat, Drouin has moved up to the Bolts’ second line and is playing with Tyler Johnson and Nikita Kucherov. He also plays on the team’s top powerplay unit (with Steven Stamkos), and Winnipeg leads the league by a big margin for number of times shorthanded. Drouin should have a lot of great opportunities to break out of his scoring slump tonight and he makes a great VALUE play.

TOP CENTER PLAYS

Henrik Sedin ($5,200) – Vancouver plays Toronto at home tonight, and the Leafs gave up six goals to Calgary last night before travelling. Sedin has 14 points in his past 12 games (6 goals, 8 assists), and yet his salary hasn’t risen. When the Canucks score, the Sedin twins are involved in many of their goals, and that should be the case again tonight.