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.
Friday night gives us five games on the NHL slate. Let's look at some studs.
Auston Matthews, Center, Toronto Maple Leafs
FanDuel Salary: $9,500
Auston Matthews has eight real-world points in his last five games. Even with erratic shot outputs, that is worth rostering at home versus the Calgary Flames on Friday night. The Toronto Maple Leafs center has 20 shots and 18 scoring chances during this time span.
Though Toronto is in a good spot, this may be an even better matchup for Matthews. People forget he scored 41 goals last year playing against those Canadian teams of the NHL North.
The Maple Leafs are also projected to score 3.30 goals on Friday, which is definitely a positive for DFS owners looking to roster Matthews and maybe more.
Stacking Toronto will be contingent on any more John Tavares news, but a good hedging idea will be to utilize William Nylander and perhaps Jake Muzzin for DFS floor purposes.
Patrick Kane, Wing, Chicago Blackhawks
FanDuel Salary: $8,800
The Chicago Blackhawks receive the most favorable matchup on Friday, going up against the lowly Arizona Coyotes. The Seattle Kraken found out about that trap game, but for DFS purposes, Arizona allows the third-most DFS points to wingers
Patrick Kane and the top Chicago trio should bounce back after a rough stretch over the last three games. The winger has 2 real-world points in this time with only 10 shots and 9 scoring chances.
Look for players like Alex DeBrincat and even Kirby Dach, who is just $4,900 on FanDuel on Friday night for further differentiation.
Darnell Nurse, Defenseman, Edmonton Oilers
FanDuel Salary: $6,200
With yet another injury issue or three hovering around NHL DFS on Friday night, Darnell Nurse becomes a more viable DFS option. Nurse has 9 assists on the season but no goals on 42 shots. It was odd but Nurse blocked three shots on Thursday night but had zero shots on goal.
Nurse tops our projections with 13.9 points, and keep in mind that Tyson Barrie saw way less ice time versus the Boston Bruins. Furthermore, look at someone like Evan Bouchard as a possible double defensemen stack may be a semi-prudent idea.
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.