In any daily fantasy lineup, 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.
Wednesday night has four games on the main NHL slate. Let's pick a few more studs!
Connor McDavid, Center, Edmonton Oilers
FanDuel Salary: $10,000
Connor McDavid netted another assist on Monday night as the Edmonton Oilers continued their hot start, though it was Leon Draisaitl who stole the show with two goals.
McDavid is still averaging over 2 real-world points a game (17 points in eight games). The Oilers will face an unrested Nashville Predators team that won a tough battle against the Calgary Flames on Tuesday.
The matchup is an excellent one, as a Nashville weakness is their penalty kill. They rank 20th in the NHL at 78.8%.
Edmonton expects to be one of the top stacks tonight, but it is again about allocating salary in different ways.
Patrick Kane, Wing, Chicago Blackhawks
FanDuel Salary: $8,400
The Chicago Blackhawks' forward is heating up. Monday night was something else, as Patrick Kane notched a hat trick with six shots on goal and a helper, as well.
Rostering Kane is the easy part, but the hard part is surrounding him with more than serviceable talent. Chicago could be a trap for the Carolina Hurricanes tonight.
The Blackhawks scored five times on Monday and are at home again on Wednesday.
Chicago has only a projected goal total of 3.03, per our model. This does seem somewhat low, as the Blackhawks will want to keep pushing the pace no matter the defensive cost. It likely is their only way of winning on Wednesday.
Look to see who may be playing with Kane at even-strength or try Seth Jones in a high-risk, high-reward scenario.
Tony DeAngelo, Defenseman, Carolina Hurricanes
FanDuel Salary: $5,300
The Carolina Hurricanes, gulp, have utilized Tony DeAngelo very effectively. He has averaged 15.31 FanDuel points per game while playing just 16:38 a night.
DeAngelo does not have to play all that well defensively, but his possession metrics are still excellent at 56.1%. This is mostly because he is deployed in the offensive zone 59.5% of the time. Simply, the blueliner is set up to succeed from an offensive standpoint.
DeAngelo is projected at just 6.8 points on Wednesday night, which is third on his own team among defensemen. That appears to be rather low.
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.