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.
There aren't many big slates with 10 games left in the regular season, so let's enjoy all the options we have to stack on Thursday.
Carolina Hurricanes
The Carolina Hurricanes sealed their trip to the playoffs on Tuesday. They'll still need to keep winning so they can finish in first place and avoid the two other strong teams in their division in the first round of the playoffs. They are in a perfect spot to do that on Thursday, now nearing full health and facing a weak opponent.
The Hurricanes had a commanding 5-1 win on Tuesday over the Dallas Stars. In that game, they welcomed back Teuvo Teravainen ($5,300) after he missed 32 of the last 33 games. What was encouraging is that he slid right back into the spot where we are used to seeing him. He played with Sebastian Aho ($7,800) and Andrei Svechnikov ($5,700) at even strength. Those guys each had three points, and for Aho, it was his fourth straight multi-point game. Aho and Svechnikov make up two players of the five on Carolina's first power-play, which has been one of the best units we've seen recently. The other piece on the power-play that would make sense in this stack is defenseman Dougie Hamilton ($6,600), who is seventh in points and first in shots on goal among blueliners.
Carolina gets a great matchup against the Detroit Red Wings on Thursday. Detroit actually moved out of the cellar of the division on Tuesday, but obviously, they still aren't anything for a team like Carolina to worry about. Detroit's bottom 10 penalty kill should be something for the best power-play in the league to feast on, giving the Canes a ton of upside in this game. Carolina is a massive -390 favorite in this game, so they should have no problems scoring goals against the Wings tonight.
Boston Bruins
The Boston Bruins appear to have righted the ship after the trade deadline because it could have been veering off course for them. They lost the game right before the deadline 8-1 and had massive holes in their lineup due to injuries and offseason departures. Since then, they've gone 7-2 and should be in good shape to make the playoffs. One thing they've benefited from is playing a soft schedule since then, and luckily for them, that will continue tonight.
The Bruins' solid top two lines are driving their recent good play. The "perfection line" has been doing its thing, as Patrice Bergeron ($7,300), Brad Marchand ($7,800), and David Pastrnak ($7,400) have all averaged a point per game over the last 10 games. These three all play on the power-play together and have a screaming value playing with them in defenseman Matthew Grzelcyk ($3,800). As usual, this makes for a great stack with a lot of upside, that will have a ton of possession. However, there is another stack on Boston that we can also use.
The second line for the Bruins has given them what they've lacked for years, depth scoring. Taylor Hall ($6,500) has been just what they needed on the second line, as he has four goals and seven points in nine games with the Bruins. David Krejci ($5,400) has been helped by the addition of Hall as well, as he has five goals since the trade and had just two goals previously. Craig Smith ($4,700) has had a good month of April with 13 points, and he completes this line. This line is also fully correlated as the second power-play unit, which is rare for a second line. It gives them more upside than most lines around the same total salary have.
The Bruins will face the Buffalo Sabres for the fifth time since the two hooked up for the Taylor Hall trade. Boston has won three of those four games, with the one loss being with Patrice Bergeron out of the lineup. Like Carolina, Boston is another team that is an overwhelming favorite, the kind we don't see too often in the NHL. FanDuel Sportsbook has them -420 to win this game, so either of the top two lines definitely has a chance of putting a few goals on Thursday.
Florida Panthers
The Florida Panthers have to be one of the most fun teams in hockey this season. More importantly for us fantasy players, they have come through a ton when we've rostered them. They beat up on the Nashville Predators on Tuesday and had some players produce tournament-winning outputs. The interesting thing about Florida from a fantasy perspective is how many different players have been relevant for fantasy. Tonight, we can add a few more.
Aleksander Barkov ($8,100) has been a driving force for the Panthers for years, and this year isn't much different. He scored two goals and had an assist on Tuesday, giving him six goals in his last five games. Even after that great performance, his linemates have changed from Tuesday. Now he'll play with Anthony Duclair ($4,000) and youngster Grigori Denisenko ($3,000). This is an extremely affordable stack to play with a star player like Barkov, and you do get power-play correlation with Duclair.
Two other players went off for the Panthers on Tuesday, in Sam Bennett ($4,000) and Jonathan Huberdeau ($7,500). Huberdeau had two goals and three assists, while Bennett picked up three assists. Bennett now has 10 points in seven games since coming over from the Calgary Flames. These two will play with Barkov and Duclair on the first power-play, so if you are trying to capture the same magic we saw on Tuesday, playing all four of those power-play forwards is an interesting stack to try tonight.
Florida has an even better matchup tonight against the Chicago Blackhawks than they did on Tuesday. Chicago has allowed the ninth-most goals per game and has the fifth-worst penalty kill in the league this season. With the way Florida has been having big games this season, it wouldn't be too surprising to see them do it again 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.