3 Daily Fantasy NHL Stacks for 3/22/21

In daily fantasy hockey, stacking is a key strategy in tournaments. We want to correlate our lineups with up to four players to maximize our upside, as if one player on a line is scoring goals, it's likely that his linemates are getting assists as well. Ideally, we'll want players that will get a lot of ice time together on an even-strength line and a power-play line. Two good resources for line combinations are LeftWingLock.com and DailyFaceoff.com, so be sure to check those sites for up-to-date line information.

Monday starts the week off with a nice 10 game slate with lots of ways to build lineups. Let's look at some of the best stacks we can use to attack tournaments tonight.

New York Rangers

The New York Rangers are a fairly average NHL team. They have a points percentage of .500 and average the 16th most goals per game. So why are they a team we should think about stacking? Well, a lot of it has to do with their opponents on Monday. They'll face the lowly Buffalo Sabres in this game. The Sabres have the worst point percentage in the league and also allow the fourth-most per game. They will be without their best player Jack Eichel in this game and for the foreseeable future.

The Rangers' recent form is also a reason to roster them tonight. Mika Zibanejad ($7,200) got off to a slow start to the season after finishing off last season as one of the hottest goal scorers in the league. He's starting to play better, with recent games of 68.9 and 31.2 FanDuel points. He also has 26 shots on goal in his last seven games, so he's getting a lot of opportunities to score. Pavel Buchnevich ($5,600) leads the team with 28 points, including 15 in 10 games in March. Chris Kreider ($6,800) leads the team with 14 goals and has two hat-tricks this season. This line has shown great chemistry over years of playing together. Buchnevich doesn't play on the power-play with the other two, but if you want some PP correlation you could roster Adam Fox ($5,200) at defense. Fox has assists in three straight games and is emerging as one of the better young offensive defensemen in the league.

Something else to consider is the second line for the Rangers. Artemi Panarin ($7,700) has returned to the lineup and had three goals and four assists in five games. He's formed great chemistry with Ryan Strome ($5,900), who has points in all five of those games. These two will make up the other set of two forwards deployed on the first power-play, and Panarin is our highest projected skater on the slate. The Rangers currently have an implied team total of 3.29, the fourth-highest tonight. Since they are a team that isn't exactly setting the league on fire, they could go overlooked on this slate with many other options.

Colorado Avalanche

The Colorado Avalanche were expected to be the best team in the West this season. While some injuries have made their win-loss record just good instead of great, their underlying numbers have been dominant. They are controlling the five-on-five expected goals share at nearly 60%, with the next closest team being just over 55%, according to Natural Stat Trick. They've turned a lot of those expected goals into actual goals of late, with a whopping 23 goals in their last four games. They are fully healthy for the most part and continue to be a team we'll want to stack.

Colorado stacks pretty much always start with Nathan MacKinnon ($8,800) as the guy who drives the bus for the team. He had been solid without really exploding lately, until the two games against the Minnesota Wild in which he put up three points in each. Mikko Rantanen ($8,400) has been on fire of late, with 10 points and 22 shots on goal in his last five games, and is now tied for ninth in points in the NHL. Gabriel Landeskog ($6,600) continues to carry a lower salary than his linemates, but like MacKinnon, he had great games against Minnesota in Colorado's last two games, with a goal and two assists in each game. The big wins over the Wild coincided with Cale Makar ($6,300) returning to the lineup. He had a goal and an assist in his last game, not missing a beat after being out for a few weeks.

The Avalanche are expected to do well in this game against the Arizona Coyotes, with an implied team total of 3.24 goals. The Coyotes have allowed the third-most expected goals per 60 minutes in the league this season, and it's not a good matchup for them going up against a team that can create chances like the Avalanche do. Colorado's first line is fully correlated on the power-play and has some of the most upside on a nightly basis, so they are definitely a stack we'll want tonight.

Carolina Hurricanes

One of the interesting dynamics of this strange season is teams playing each other three, four, and even up to seven times consecutively. It gives us a chance to see how teams match up against each other, and how the game will play out. However, it also could lead to conclusions being drawn when they shouldn't, as hockey is a game where a lot of random things happen and the results of two games won't necessarily carry over to the next game. The Carolina Hurricanes have just played two games in a row against the Columbus Blue Jackets and lost 3-2 in overtime in both games. The shot and chance metrics for the games greatly favored the Hurricanes, as they had 26 high danger chances compared to just 12 for the Blue Jackets.

Carolina's biggest advantage over Columbus would be on the power-play, as they now have the league's best PP, with a success rate at 31.3%. Meanwhile, Columbus has really struggled on the penalty kill, as they are the fifth-worst team in the NHL in that department. Carolina only spent 7:11 on the power play over the two games, so they didn't really have the chances to put up a big game through special teams. Sebastian Aho ($7,600) is the team leader in points and leads the Hurricanes' forwards in power-play ice time per game. He's joined at even-strength and on the man advantage by Martin Necas ($4,400), who is a second-year player tasked with playing a bigger role due to some injuries, and is emerging as a talented youngster. The other player who plays with them is Nino Niederreiter ($4,900), but he doesn't play on the top power-play with them.

The two other forwards who play on the first power-play are Jordan Staal ($4,900) and Andrei Svechnikov ($5,800). They both have 10 points on the power play this season. Svechnikov in particular is a good value, as he has the 14th highest shot-attempt rate in the league, and was able to get five on net in Saturday's game, including a goal. Any Carolina stack should strongly consider Dougie Hamilton ($6,500), as he has a point streak of 11 straight games and has the second-most shots on goal among defensemen.

The Hurricanes have an implied team total that's currently at 3.00 and there are a handful of teams with higher implied totals. With the Canes' solid power-play and how well they've played in the two previous games without getting the results, they are a team that people may not go to when building lineups tonight.

Nicholas Vazquez is not a FanDuel employee. In addition to providing DFS gameplay advice, Nicholas Vazquez also participates in DFS contests on FanDuel using his personal account, username hbyanksman. 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.