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.
Monday night has a couple of games. It is time to look at a few studs!
[Editor's note: Tonight's game between the Buffalo Sabres and Columbus Blue Jackets has been postponed.]
Kirill Kaprizov, Wing, Minnesota Wild
FanDuel Salary: $8,000
The Minnesota Wild forward travels on the road Monday night and plays against the Dallas Stars.
Kirill Kaprizov has not slowed down a bit from his Calder Trophy-winning campaign. He has 11 goals and 22 assists in 29 games. If anything, his 102 shots suggest he is speeding things up.
The only tangible category Kaprizov is down in is power-play goals. Kaprizov has just one this season. He had eight in 55 games last season. Besides the higher shot floor, the Russian is averaging a blocked shot per contest over his last five games. He is tied with Joe Pavelski for most points among skaters in our model at 14.2 on Monday night.
Zach Werenski, Defenseman, Columbus Blue Jackets
FanDuel Salary: $5,600
The Columbus blueliner is one of the few bright spots on a team that cannot find the win column of late (two wins in the last 10games).
Zach Werenski has 3 assists in his last five games and 19 real-world points in 28 contests this year. He is logging a ton of minutes and even played 30+ minutes versus the Anaheim Ducks on December 9th. He will get plenty of chances to fire shots on goal. Werenski has 18 of those in his past five appearances.
Most will take a long look at Miro Heiskanen on Monday night but Weresnki has the better matchup versus the Buffalo Sabres (2-5-3 in their last ten).
Roope Hintz, Center, Dallas Stars
FanDuel Salary: $6,900
The Roope Hintz game-time decision jokes are a thing of the past now as the center continues to pile up goals and assists for Dallas after a brutal start.
Hintz plays at home where the Stars, as a whole, play much better as a team. Mistakes seem to be far less costly at a venue where they already have 10 wins on the young season. Overall, the center has 11 goals and 10 assists. This comes with six real-world points in his previous five contests. Also, Hintz is creating more than four scoring chances a night since Jason Robertson returned to the lineup.
Also, there is a contrarian play in Ryan Hartman. Hartman has a similar engine to Hintz and will likely go lower-owned on Monday night. Hintz is the likely better stacking option with the aforementioned Robinson and Pavelski.
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.