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.
Tuesday night brings us three games on the NHL slate. Studs can be found. Let's go!
Leon Draisaitl, Center, Edmonton Oilers
FanDuel Salary: $10,300
This short slate will undoubtedly test many souls on Tuesday night. Wednesday night may crush them all.
In the meantime, there is Leon Draisaitl, who has 18 goals in 17 games and 35 real-world points. Then there is Connor McDavid, who has 32 points this season (at least one in every game). Which of the two should you lock in? I side with Draisaitl.
Our model projects Edmonton to score 3.30 goals, which is easily attainable for an offense this explosive. The Dallas Stars may have to play Jake Oettinger, and this would be a tough spot for him -- even though he's playing well.
Edmonton's power play is dynamite because of their star duo, topping the league at a 39.6% success clip. For those who said the Oilers' hot start could not continue, it has been (basically) six weeks now. McDavid has 12 power-play assists. Draisaitl leads the NHL with nine power-play goals and five game-winning goals.
Stacking players on both sides of this Edmonton-Dallas matchup is not a bad idea. Evan Bouchard could be a key cog to doing so as his salary is a big help.
Johnny Gaudreau, Wing, Calgary Flames
FanDuel Salary: $7,400
At one time, the Calgary Flames were believed to be shopping Johnny Gaudreau. That all seems to be a moot point now since the winger has eight goals and 14 assists already this season.
He shoots a lot and has generated 63 shots on goal along with 72 scoring chances. Gaudreau has seven real-world points in his last four games and 23 shots during that span.
The uptick in his floor is a huge difference from the past two years. Furthermore, there may be goals coming his way as Gaudreau has just one power-play tally on the year. The matchup with the Chicago Blackhawks is a good one.
Victor Hedman, Defenseman, Tampa Bay Lightning
FanDuel Salary: $6,000
It's not necessary to consume yourself with the other top-projected defensemen. Victor Hedman is all you need on Tuesday.
In a clash with the Philadelphia Flyers, Tampa Bay is projected to score the most goals of the night (3.82), per our model. Hedman has at least 14.9 FanDuel points in five straight games. He is carrying this Tampa Bay team without Nikita Kucherov and Brayden Point in the lineup.
The Lightning have been entertaining -- to say the least -- of late. They scored three goals against the New Jersey Devils and four more versus Minnesota.
Hedman makes a lot of sense tonight, and it doesn't hurt that he had two assists in a previous meeting with Philly earlier in the month.
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.