Daily Fantasy Hockey Powerplay – April 17^th, 2015

After the first two nights of the playoff hockey, the NHL once again proved that the Stanley Cup playoffs are one of the best sporting events in the world. There were some outstanding hockey games played on Wednesday and Thursday nights, with a lot of intrigue and extremely fast paced and exciting action.

Four series play game #2 tonight, and with the road team winning three of the game 1 match-ups, there will a few teams (Nashville Predators, Washington Capitals, Vancouver Canucks) very motivated to even their series and not go out on the road down 2 games to 0. For daily fantasy hockey play tonight, we’ll break down the top teams and players to target for your lineups.

In addition to this article, check out these other eDraft tools and resources that will assist you to build winning lineups in FanDuel:

eDraft.com FanDuel Deep Data Analyzer <link>:

• an extremely valuable tool to breakdown who is hot and scoring points in FanDuel, and also who is scoring consistently every game
• also a great feature for looking at FanDuel points per $. This is a powerful feature for looking at player salaries as compared to their fantasy point production to identify value, when building your lineup
• there are filters by NHL team, position, by date, FanDuel salary

eDraft.com Fantasy Hockey Player Rankings Tool <link>

eDraft.com – Full NHL Playoffs First Round Preview <link>

Game by Game Review for DFS Hockey – 4/17

DFS Hockey Analysis – NYI @ WAS

Playoff Series Notes:

• The Islanders came away with a big 4-1 win in game #1 of the series, taking a 3-1 lead with two second period goals, and adding an empty netter

• The offense was led by Brock Nelson with two goals and Josh Bailey with a goal and an assist

• Washington absolutely needs to win tonight’s game, and prevent a 2-0 hole heading to New York

• The Capitals big offensive players were shut down on Wednesday night, but look for them to come up big in game two.

Regular Season Notes:

• Washington had the best power play since the all-star break (Islanders ranked #16). For penalty kill in that period, Washington ranked #9 and the Islanders #11

• The New York Islanders ranked 6^th for Corsi percentage (shots attempted) at 52.7%, while Washington ranked 14^th at 51.4%

• Alex Ovechkin had four goals in the four goals against the Islanders and he’s a “big game” player. He will be a popular DFS player tonight, but fade him at your own risk

CAPITALS STACK – top power play unit: Alex Ovechkin, Nicklas Backstrom, Troy Brouwer, Marcus Johansson, John Carlson

CAPITALS VALUE PLAYS (for DFS tonight): Joel Ward and Evgeny Kuznetsov

ISLANDERS STACK – top power play unit: John Tavares, Kyle Okposo, Anders Lee, Nick Leddy, Ryan Strome

ISLANDERS VALUE PLAYS (for DFS tonight): Nikolay Kulemin, Ryan Strome, Brock Nelson, Lubomir Visnovsky

DFS Hockey Analysis – OTT @ MON

Playoff Series Notes:

• The Senators took a 1-0 lead in game one, but the Canadiens stormed back with four goals in the second period, including the game winner by Brian Flynn late in the frame. The Senators were unable to tie things up in a scoreless third period

• The Canadiens’ third and fourth lines did most of the scoring with unheralded winger Brian Flynn (min priced on FanDuel) having a career night with a goal and two assists

• The Habs’ winger and leading scorer Max Pacioretty is back in the lineup, after missing game one

• Senators’ rookie winger (and soon-to-be Calder trophy nominee) Mark Stone might miss the game, after taking an aggressive slash from P.K. Subban. Subban received a game misconduct but wasn’t suspended, so he’ll play tonight. In Stone’s absence, Milan Michalek moves up to the Sens’ top line

Regular Season notes:

• Ottawa went 13-2-2 down the stretch to get into the playoffs. They leaned heavily on goaltender Andrew Hammond who was brilliant for them. The “Hamburglar” makes for a good GPP tournament option tonight in goal

• On the other side, Montréal goaltender Carey Price was undoubtedly the best in the league this season, winning the goaltending triple crown (44 wins, 1.96 GAA, .933 SvPct)

• Senators’ defenseman Erik Karlsson was the top scoring blueliner in the league again this season with 21 goals, 67 points and 292 shots. He is in play for tournaments any night. Rookie Mark Stone finished the season on fire with a nine game point streak and 13 points in that span

• Both teams have ranked in the bottom third in power play percentage since the all-star break

SENATORS STACK – top line: Clarke MacArthur, Kyle Turris, Milan Michalek, with defenseman Erik Karlsson

SENATORS VALUE PLAYS (for DFS tonight): Milan Michalek, David Legwand, Cody Ceci

CANADIENS STACK – top power play unit: Alex Galchenyuk, Tomas Plekanec, Brendan Gallagher, P.K. Subban, Andrei Markov 

CANADIENS VALUE PLAYS (for DFS tonight): Devante-Smith Pelly, Lars Eller, Jeff Petry, Brian Flynn

DFS Hockey Analysis – CHI @ NAS

Playoff Series notes:

• In game one, the Predators stormed out to a 3-0 lead in the first period (two goals by Colin Wilson), the Hawks pulled goaltender Corey Crawford in favor of Scott Darling, then came back with three second period goals to tie it, before winning the game with a goal by Duncan Keith in the second overtime period

• The top players for the Blackhawks came up big with multi-point games by Toews, Kane, Keith and Hossa

• The loss was extremely tough for the Predators who started strong but couldn’t hold the lead and they’ll now need to win game two at home. The Predators have now lost seven straight games overall and desperately need a win

• This game is another “coin flip”, either team can win. After being a slight underdog in game one, the Hawks are now favored in game two

• The Predators can’t keep up with the quick pace of the Blackhawks so they might try to dictate the style of play to a slower, grinding type style

• Hawks’ goaltender Corey Crawford is back in goal for this game despite being pulled on Wednesday. He isn’t a recommended play for cash games tonight, but both he and Pekka Rinne are options for tournaments.

Regular Season notes:

• Chicago and Montréal were tied for fewest goals allowed in the league this season (189, or 2.30 goals per game)

• Nashville has a reputation for being a strong defensive team with great defense and with Vezina candidate goaltender Pekka Rinne. However, they were near the bottom of the league for goals allowed though in March-April, giving up nearly three goals per game on average

• The Predators also finished the season on a six game losing streak, and were outscored 24-14 in that period

• For special teams, both Chicago and Nashville ranked in the bottom third in power play in the second half, and Chicago went 0/11 in six games in April (Nashville not much better 1/9). Chicago also ranked 28^th in penalty kill since the all-star break at only 75.6%, while Nashville ranked 8^th

• Both teams ranked high for Corsi % - Chicago 2^nd and Nashville 7^th, and they are both strong puck possession teams

• Chicago got superstar winger Patrick Kane back from injury in game one, and that was a huge boost for them to make their scoring deeper and for their struggling power play

BLACKHAWKS STACK – top power play unit: Jonathan Toews, Patrick Kane, Andrew Shaw, Marian Hossa, Duncan Keith

BLACKHAWKS VALUE PLAYS (for DFS tonight): Kris Versteeg, Andrew Shaw, Teuvo Teravainen, Brent Seabrook

PREDATORS STACK – second line (which will be very low-owned): Colin Wilson, Matt Cullen, James Neal, and add one of defensemen Shea Weber or Roman Josi

PREDATORS VALUE PLAYS (for DFS tonight): Gabriel Bourque, Ryan Ellis, Seth Jones

DFS Hockey Analysis – CGY @ VAN

Playoff Series Notes:

• The Flames pulled out another big comeback victory, tying game one at a 1-1 score mid-way through the third period and winning it with 30 seconds left before overtime

• The Flames have been doing that all year and it’s tough to count them out of any game

• This game was the least relevant for daily fantasy on Wednesday night, but that could change this evening as you have to expect Vancouver to step things up with a better game offensively

• Both goaltenders (Jonas Hiller and Eddie Lack) had big games, facing 30 shots each, and they are both in-play again tonight

Regular Season Notes:

• This game, and perhaps the series, might be toughest to predict. Both teams aren’t good targets for cash games, but they are definitely both great choices for DFS tournaments

• Since the all-star break, Vancouver was 4^th in goal scoring and 10^th in power play percentage. Calgary ranked 7^th in goal scoring and 5^th in power play

• No one expected Calgary to make the playoffs this season, but they’ve had an incredible year, led by their top line, great role players, and a lot of offense from their blueline

• The Flames had their big season despite ranking near the bottom in many of the games’ statistics for shots allowed, puck possession and others (i.e. 28^th in Corsi For %)

• Calgary has been a great team for tournaments all season long, with their top line going off for big games many times

• The Canucks had a great season as well, but their biggest problem has been their goaltending with Ryan Miller hurt for the past two months and he looked bad in the final Canucks game (5 goals against). Backup goaltender Eddie Lack was good in some starts but inconsistent overall and difficult to trust in DFS hockey

• The top line for Vancouver (Sedin twins and Alexandre Burrows) also does most of their scoring and they’ve been hot lately

FLAMES STACK – top power play unit: Johnny Gaudreau, Sean Monahan, Jiri Hudler, Dennis Wideman, Kris Russell

FLAMES VALUE PLAYS (for DFS tonight): Joe Colborne, Michael Ferland, T.J. Brodie, Sam Bennett

CANUCKS STACK – first line: Daniel Sedin, Henrik Sedin, Alexandre Burrows

CANUCKS VALUE PLAYS (for DFS tonight): Nick Bonino, Bo Horvat, Yannick Weber

FanDuel Lineups

Finally, let’s put all of the information together and look at a couple potential line-ups that we could use in FanDuel tonight.

Lineup for Cash Games (50/50s, Head-to-head):

In today’s cash game lineups, we’ll spread out our roster across several teams that are in good match-ups tonight, including players from each of the teams listed as top targets above, and a few other players in good spots.

CASH GAME LINEUP #1 (Price in goal, and a balance of players from other teams):

LW - Marcus Johansson, WAS, $5,000
LW - Alex Galchenyuk, MON, $5,500
RW - Kyle Okposo, NYI, $5,700
RW - Patrick Kane, CHI, $8,400
C - Nicklas Backstrom, WAS, $7,000
C - Henrik Sedin, VAN, $6,500
D - Seth Jones, NSH, $3,500
D - Yannick Weber, VAN, $3,300
G - Carey Price, MON, $9,900

CASH GAME LINEUP #2 (dropping down to Lack in goal, with upgrades up front, including paying up for Ovechkin):

LW - Alexander Ovechkin, WAS, $9,700
LW - Daniel Sedin, VAN, $7,800
RW - Kyle Okposo, NYI, $5,700
RW - Joel Ward, WAS, $4,600
C - David Desharnais, MON, $5,000
C - Evgeny Kuznetsov, WAS, $5,000
D - Andrei Markov, MON, $5,200
D - Yannick Weber, VAN, $3,300
G - Eddie Lack, VAN, $8,500

GPP Tournament Lineups:

There are many different ways to build a tournament lineup tonight, with plenty of teams that are great options for tournament play.

NOTE: these are sample line-ups and could be used as the base for creating a tournament lineup. For multi-entry tournaments with big fields, create several different lineups using the teams to target and GPP line stacks listed above and put them into the same tournament.

Here are three examples below:

GPP LINEUP #1 (a pairing of the top lines from Vancouver and Washington, and the Hamburglar in goal):

LW - Daniel Sedin, VAN, $7,800
LW - Alexander Ovechkin, WAS, $9,700
RW - Alex Burrows, VAN, $5,200
RW - Joel Ward, WAS, $4,600
C - Henrik Sedin, VAN, $6,500
C - Evgeny Kuznetsov, WAS, $5,000
D - Yannick Weber, VAN, $3,300
D - Mike Green, WAS, $4,600
G - Andrew Hammond, OTT, $8,300

GPP LINEUP #2 (a lower-owned lineup, with Predators second line and Islanders, Price in net):

LW - Colin Wilson, NSH, $5,000
LW - Matt Cullen, NSH, $4,300
RW - James Neal, NSH, $7,400
RW - Ryan Strome, NYI, $5,000
C - John Tavares, NYI, $9,500
C - Brock Nelson, NYI, $4,200
D - Nick Leddy, NYI, $5,000
D - Ryan Ellis, NSH, $4,000
G - Carey Price, MON, $9,900

GPP LINEUP #3 (Blackhawks power play group, with Capitals and Lack in net):

LW - Alexander Ovechkin, WAS, $9,700
LW - Jason Chimera, WAS, $3,300
RW - Joel Ward, WAS, $4,600
RW - Patrick Kane, NSH, $8,400
C - Jonathan Toews, CHI, $7,600
C - Andrew Shaw, CHI, $4,600
D - Mike Green, WAS, $4,600
D - Brent Seabrook, CHI, $3,700
G - Eddie Lack, VAN, $8,500

Good luck to everyone playing Daily Fantasy Hockey today!

-Sean

DFS alias: maxdout

Twitter: @maxdoutDFS