4 NHL FanDuel Studs to Target on Thursday 11/18/21
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.
Thursday night comes in fierce with 11 games, so let's see what studs are out there.
Auston Matthews, Center, Toronto Maple Leafs
FanDuel Salary: $9,600
The Toronto Maple Leafs' center has a solid home matchup against the New York Rangers.
Auston Matthews should enjoy a ton of scoring chances versus a Rangers defense that allows more than 35 shots per 60 on the road. Igor Shesterkin will likely be under siege via a barrage of shots from the Leafs.
Matthews has a projection of 17.9 FanDuel points, which is the third-highest clip among centers on this large slate. He is one of the best goal-scorers in hockey, and with New York having quite a few defensive issues, no one should be surprised if Matthews lights the lamp in this spot.
Kyle Connor, Wing, Winnipeg Jets
FanDuel Salary: $8,900
Kyle Connor keeps shooting the puck! The forward already has 12 goals on the season, and he has a whopping 68 shots in 15 games. He reminds me of a young Alex Ovechkin in many ways, and he can keep improving.
A forward who averages more than five scoring chances a night, Conner can thrive in any matchup, and he has a good one tonight against the Edmonton Oilers.
Conner makes sense in any format, and you can look to Neal Pionk or Josh Morrissey as mini-stacking options to pair with him.
Victor Hedman, Defenseman, Tampa Bay Lightning
FanDuel Salary: $6,700
Victor Hedman usually performs well against the Philadelphia Flyers, and our model projects him to do so again.
He is not only the highest-projected defenseman on this slate, but he is nearly the top-projected skater, forecasted up with the two stud Edmonton centers and Steven Stamkos with a projection of 18.1 FanDuel points -- and his salary is at least $1,500 less than all three of them.
We peg the Lightning to score 3.3 goals, so you can plug Hedman into stacks or use him as a one-off pick. The defenseman has 20 or more FanDuel points in three of his last four games.
With the Lightning facing a team that loves to get sucked into fast-paced play, this sets up as a great fantasy environment for Hedman.
Sergei Bobrovsky, Goalie, Florida Panthers
Thankfully for the New Jersey Devils, they have to see the Florida Panthers only a few times this season. Sergei Bobrovsky holds a career mark of 17-5-1 in 23 games played against New Jersey.
Florida will be without Aleksander Barkov on Thursday, but Bobrovsky has gotten off to a great start this season. The Russian goaltender is 7-0-2 with a 1.78 goals-against average, .942 save percentage, and a career-high .911 save percentage short-handed.
Bobrovsky might be enjoying the best stretch of his career and is a superb play tonight.
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.
