RADIO
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 Saturday, June 19th, 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!
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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 6/19
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- Tampa Bay Lightning (-130) vs. New York Islanders - 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).
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NHL DFS Core Plays- Showdown Edition
Captain Picks
- Brayden Point ($9,800 DK/ 14,500 FD) - Point has been on another level and it's hard to not just click the lock button and move on. He has the hot stick right now for the Lightning as he has scored a goal in six straight games despite taking 16 total shots on goal. The pricing on DK hasn't quite caught up yet to his hot performance so he makes for a great value over on that site specifically even in the captain spot.
- Nikita Kucherov ($10,600 DK/ 14,500 FD) - Kucherov has been one of the biggest beneficiaries of Point's great play as he himself has registered nine points over his last six games with seven of those points being assists. Kucherov still sports one of the higher overall floors and ceilings so getting either him or Point in a cash game lineup would be an absolute must.
- Semyon Varlamov ($10,200 DK) - Even though Varlamov was on the losing end of a 2-1 loss on Thursday night, he actually performed pretty well as he stopped 23 of 25 total shots and held the Lightning to just two goals. Normally, if you can hold Tampa to just two goals you have a fighting chance but that was certainly not the case for the Islanders. Varlamov and company benefits again by playing another game in New York so hopefully the home-ice advantage helps as he has played well there all season long (14-5-4 record and 1.98 goals allowed average).
Value Picks
- Kyle Palmieri ($5,800 DK/ $10,000 FD) - Palmieri has yet to record a point in this series against Tampa Bay but the one positive note is that he is seeing solid minutes each game and is putting the puck on net as he has seven shots on goal through the first three games. The Islanders are struggling to score goals and they will need their depth lines to generate some points in order for them to pull off the upset so keep considering Palmieri as he will find the back of the net soon.
- Blake Coleman ($4,800 DK/ $9,000 FD) - The pricing on Coleman went up on both sites as he has now recorded a point in back-to-back games the small price hike shouldn't steer you away from rostering him in all formats. Coleman continues to see consistent minutes and is always good for a few shots on goal.
- Casey Cizikas ($2,600 DK/ $8,000 FD) - It's very rare that you would want to roster a fourth-line center for fantasy purposes but we will need some salary savers in order to spend up elsewhere for our roster construction. Cizikas is a grinder for the Islanders and makes for a great cash game play as he averages close to three peripheral stats per game which gives you a solid floor to work with for his price point.
Stacks (In order of preference)
- TBL 1- Palat/ Point/ Kucherov
- NYI 2- Komarov/ Barzal/ Eberle
- 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, Coleman, Zajac, Goodrow
D- Hedman, Pulock, McDonagh, Sergachev, Dobson, Pelech, Leddy, Cernak, Mayfield
G- Varlamov, Vasilevskiy
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
[jiffyNews category_include='9958' headline='More DFS Lineup Picks and Analysis'
