NHL

3 NHL FanDuel Studs to Target on 3/5/21

Chris Wassel  —  @ChrisWasselDFS Mar 5th, 2021
Friday night features six games on the NHL schedule. So, which high-salaried players can we trust?

Spending up in any daily fantasy lineup is how to get the superstars and the highest upside players in your lineup. In NHL DFS, it’s different from paying up in sports like NBA or NFL. Someone can be one of the highest salaried players at his position and put up a total dud of a performance, and paying that much for him would be a huge mistake. Let’s make sure we are paying up in the right spots when building our lineups tonight.

Friday night grants us six games on this slate. Let's look at a few studs.

Patrice Bergeron, Center, Boston Bruins

FanDuel Salary: $7,700

The Boston Bruins center has had a few off games by his standards. There is a risk with Patrice Bergeron as his ice time has dipped a little of late (even seeing 16 minutes or fewer in two games recently). Also, he only fired one shot on net in the past couple of contests. This is in spite of the fact that he had several quality chances.

There are a few ways to stack for Boston and one may be using Matthew Grzelcyk, as he sees some power-play time with Bergeron or may tonight versus Washington. A little creativity could go a long way in DFS tonight. David Pastrnak would be the wing designation if one wants to attempt a center-wing-defenseman stack strategy with some correlation.

Also, look at Nathan MacKinnon ($8,300), who at press time, was not cleared to play against the Anaheim Ducks.

Mikko Rantanen, Wing, Colorado Avalanche

FanDuel Salary: $8,100

The good news is that Mikko Rantanen did not have to rely on Nathan MacKinnon as much as people often assume. Even after MacKinnon's exit, Rantanen picked up a few more real-world points on Wednesday night versus San Jose. His four-point night along with the high-shot output is a big reason why Rantanen is a good option with or without Colorado's star center.

Colorado faces an Anaheim team struggling to string games together. The problem with the Avalanche sometimes is they will play down to their competition sometimes (see the first meeting in their miniseries with San Jose). Rantanen is capable of going on runs as he strung together a five-game goal streak earlier in the season after a dud in game number one.

That duo of Mark Stone ($7,400) and Max Pacioretty ($7,800) goes up against the San Jose Sharks tonight in what is usually a spirited affair full of goals.

Drew Doughty, Defenseman, Los Angeles Kings

FanDuel Salary: $6,000

This option is nowhere near as risky as it used to be. Drew Doughty had three days of rest between games and the Arizona game only showed how rested he looked. Doughty played 27+ minutes, racked up four shots, scored a goal, and blocked two more shots.

The floor (shots plus blocked shots) is still quite good for Doughty, who is enjoying a renaissance season along with the Los Angeles Kings' top line. Doughty sees so much ice time and in every single situation imaginable which increases his DFS point potential.

Some alternatives could include Shea Theodore ($6,200) from Vegas and Jakob Chychrun ($4,500) from the Arizona Coyotes.

Chris Wassel is not a FanDuel employee. In addition to providing DFS gameplay advice, Chris Wassel also participates in DFS contests on FanDuel using his personal account, username chriswassel. While the strategies and player selections recommended in his articles are his/her personal views, he/she may deploy different strategies and player selections when entering contests with his/her personal account. The views expressed in his/her articles are the author’s alone and do not necessarily reflect the views of FanDuel.