RADIO
Welcome, RotoBallers. It is Stanley Cup Finals' time which means it's time to sharpen our showdown lineup skills 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 Monday, July 5th, 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 7/5
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- Tampa Bay Lightning (-155) vs. Montreal Canadiens (-140) - 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/ MVP Picks
- Andrei Vasilevskiy ($10,800 DK) - Despite allowing three goals to the Canadiens on Friday night, Vasievskiy still turned out a very solid performance as he recorded 35 saves and hit the saves bonus over on DK. The Canadiens have struggled to create quality scoring chances and opportunities the way the Lightning have and with Tampa being one win away from winning the Stanley Cup, it is hard to not see Vasilevskiy turn out a top-tier performance to close out the series.
- Nikita Kucherov ($10,600 DK/ 15,500 FD) - Kucherov had another big night on Friday as he took six shots, recorded a goal, and also notched an assist in the power play. Kuch has now scored five points in the series against Montreal while managing to take 11 shots on goal injust three games so he offers the highest upside out of any skater on the ice.
- Carey Price ($9,200 DK) - With Montreal now down 3-0 in the series, they will need a legendary performance from Carey Price in order for them to stay alive in this series. He allowed five goals on 29 shots and while it was not his best outing, Price will certainly be lower owned in tournaments over on DK which makes him worth concisdering if doing several entries and want to go the contrarian route on Monday night for this showdown slate.
Value Picks
- Cole Caufield ($7,200 DK/ $9,500 FD) - The pricing on Caufield has come down a bit which makes him a viable option in all formats. He registered his first Stanley Cup Final point on Friday as he recorded an assist while taking a shot on goal and recording a blocked shot. The Montreal second line is the strongest scoring threat that the Canadiens have and they will need Caufield to ball out the way he did against Vegas in order for them to turn this series around.
- Ben Chiarot ($6,200 DK/ $6,500 FD) - Chiarot was able to get on the scorer's sheet Friday night as he recorded his second assist during the Stanley Cup Finals. In addition to recording an assist, Chiarot took three shots on goal and still saw plenty of ice time so continue to roll him out in all formats as long as his price tag remains relatively low on both sites.
- Blake Coleman ($4,400 DK/ $9,000 FD) - Coleman scored the empty-net goal on Friday night which now gives him points scored in three straight games throughout the Stanley Cup Finals while scoring goals in back-to-back games. The Lightning third line saw the most collective ice time on Friday and if they continue to see the most usage and ice time, they are definitely viable options from a DFS perspective.
Stacks (In order of preference)
- TBL 1- Palat/ Point/ Kucherov
- MTL 2- Toffoli/ Suzuki/ Caufield
- TBL 2- Killorn/ Cirelli/ Stamkos
Player Pool (In order of preference)
C- Point, Suzuki, Danault, Cirelli, Kotkaniemi, Staal,
W- Kucherov, Stamkos, Toffoli, Caufield, Palat, Gallagher, Anderson, Killorn, Lehkonen, Coleman, Byron, Goodrow
D- Hedman, Weber, Petry, McDonagh, Sergachev, Chiarot, Cernak, Gustafsson, Edmundson
G- Price, 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'
