NHL DFS Lineup Picks for FanDuel, DraftKings (6/15 Showdown): Value Plays, Goalies, Stacks

Welcome, RotoBallers. Hockey season has now entered the postseason which is the most exciting time to watch and partake in NHL DFS! As always, I'll give you the stats and info you need to build the best lineups possible for your GPP and cash game NHL contests on both DraftKings and FanDuel.

Today I'll be bringing you my NHL lineup picks, analysis, and advice for NHL DFS contests on DraftKings and FanDuel for Tuesday, June 15th, 2020 at 8:00 PM. Be sure to also check out our awesome NHL tools including our Lineup Optimizer, Research Station, Projections, and DFS Cheat Sheets!

Feel free to follow me on Twitter @jorgepucks as I am happy to engage with readers and try to answer your questions. Good luck RotoBallers!

Intro and Overview

If you are new to playing NHL DFS, there are several things to know that will help you get caught up to speed. The first thing to know is that stacking lines is important and correlating your plays can pay off. In hockey, if someone scores a goal, there's a good chance that some on his team will receive an assist on that goal, so you want to build lineups around players skating together.

In the image above, you'll see that Sidney Crosby is skating in-between Jake Guentzel and Bryan Rust and this line has skated together for most of the year. The idea behind staking forward lines is that if Crosby gets a goal, there is a higher percentage and chance that either Rust or Guentzel would get credited with an assist, therefore, resulting in more fantasy points.

The second thing is to make sure you look at the two sites and see the different ways to obtain points. On DraftKings, you get bonus points for 5+ shots or 3+ blocked shots so someone like Alex Ovechkin who is a volume shooter tends to be a better play on that site just because he can rack up additional points based on his style of play.

NHL DFS Analysis and Picks for 6/14

• • New York Islanders vs. Tampa Bay Lightning (-200) - 5O

NHL DFS Goalie Analysis Matrix

The matrix above takes the averages of four categories and creates a rating scale to help you decide which goalies to use, which goalies to target against, and conversely which teams could be viable from a stacking standpoint. It looks at four categories: Goals Allowed (GA), Shots Allowed (SA), Goals For (GF), Shots For (SF). The higher the overall rating in the total column indicates that it is a more dangerous matchup for that team's goalie while it might be beneficial to stack against him. If the total is low, that means he is in a good matchup from a fantasy perspective and should be considered for your goalie selection. I match and sync this every day to the actual opponents that they are facing every slate so this is always slate specific.

NHL DFS Power Play Matrix

The Power Play matrix is to help locate matchups that can be exploited should there be an odd-man advantage during the game. Just like the goalie matrix above, the teams are matched up based on their own power play percentage rank and their opponent's penalty kill percentage rank. When looking at this matrix, you will want to look for teams that succeed in the power play rank (lower the rank the better they are) while their opponent has a poor penalty kill rank (the higher the rank, the worse their penalty kill is).

Did you know RotoBaller has a Premium NHL DFS subscription? Like what you read today? You can show your support for Jorge by using the promo code JORGEPUCKS when purchasing an NHL DFS Premium Pass. You get 10% off, and exclusive access to all of our Premium NHL cheat sheets, DFS research tools, Premium Slack Chatrooms, Stack Builder, Correlation Matrix, and Lineup Optimizer!

NHL DFS Core Plays- Showdown Edition

Captain Picks

• Andrei Vasilevskiy ($10,200 DK) - Vasilevskiy had a strong showing despite being on the wrong end of a 2-1 loss. He stopped 29 of 31 total shots faced while still producing a .935 save percentage throughout their game on Sunday. This is a big game for the Lightning as they would not like to go on the road down 2-0 so they will need a very strong outing from Vasilevskiy to tie up the series.
• Nikita Kucherov ($10,600 DK/ 15,000 FD) - Kucherov had kind of a quiet night despite getting on the scorer's sheet and registering an assist. He only was able to get one shot on goal so for Tampa to get this win on Tuesday night, they will need Kucherov to be more active offensively.
• Mathew Barzal ($9,400 DK/ 14,000 FD) - Barzal had himself a really good Game 1 against the Lightning as he took three shots on goal and recorded the first goal of the series. Barzal's line saw a mixture of the top three Tampa lines and the constant switching could be beneficial as he might not get stuck seeing their best defensive line all night long.

Value Picks

• Alex Killorn ($7,200 DK/ $10,000 FD) - The hot streak continued for Killorn on Sunday as he recorded another assist which was his fifth straight game with a point while also recording a point in six out of his last seven playoff games. Killorn also had four shots on goal and if he continues to stay this active on the offensive end, he could make for a great all-around play.
• Kyle Palmieri ($6,000 DK/ $10,500 FD) - The point streak did come to an end for Palmieri and he only recorded two shots on goal in Sunday's win against Tampa Bay. His line should continue to see a good amount of ice time and Palmieri has scored the second-most goals on the Islanders over their last five games.
• Casey Cizikas ($2,000 DK/ $7,500 FD) - Cizikas is still priced down and while he doesn't offer the highest ceiling from a fantasy perspective, he is pretty active game in and game out. Cizikas averages two peripheral stats per game over his last four games and has also had two points in that four-game stretch so he could easily hit value if he is able to get on the scorer's sheet.

Stacks (In order of preference)

• TBL 1- Palat/ Point/ Kucherov
• NYI 2- Beauvillier/ Nelson/ Bailey
• TBL 2- Killorn/ Cirelli/ Stamkos

Player Pool (In order of preference)

C- Point, Barzal, Nelson, Gourde, Pageau, Cirelli. Cizikas 

W- Kucherov, Stamkos, Beauvillier, Eberle, Palat, Bailey, Killorn, Komarov, Palmieri, Zajac, Goodrow, Coleman

D- Hedman, Pulock, McDonagh, Sergachev, Dobson, Pelech, Leddy, Cernak, Mayfield

G- Vasilevskiy, Varlamov

Key Abbreviations:

xGF/60= expected goal for per 60 minutes of ice time

GF/60= goals for per 60 minutes of ice time

SC/60= Scoring Chances per 60 minutes of ice time

If you have any additional questions, make sure to reach out to me on Twitter or in our NHL room at the RotoBaller slack chat!

NHL Player News and Updates

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