3 Daily Fantasy NHL Stacks for Friday 1/21/22
In daily fantasy hockey, stacking is a key strategy in tournaments. We want to correlate our lineups with up to four players to maximize our upside, as if one player on a line is scoring goals, it's likely that his linemates are getting assists as well. Ideally, we'll want players that will get a lot of ice time together on an even strength line and a power play line. Two good resources for line combinations are LeftWingLock.com and DailyFaceoff.com, so be sure to check those sites for updated line information.
This slate is larger than a normal Friday, so it gives better options for teams to stack. Let's take a look at three of them.
St. Louis Blues
Like many teams this season, the St. Louis Blues have had a ton of moving parts in their lineup due to injuries and COVID. When fully healthy, they have one of the deepest forward groups in the NHL. They are back to full strength tonight and have a good matchup in which they can use their depth.
The first line for St. Louis is very easy to fit into your lineup and is fully correlated on the top power play. Ryan O'Reilly ($5,500) has been playing well of late, with five points in his last two games. He's centering Brayden Schenn ($4,500) and David Perron ($6,100). They haven't been the best Blues' forwards this season, but they are still scoring at a good rate and offer solid value at their salary.
The Blues' second line doesn't offer the same correlation, but it has players who have been leading the charge offensively. Vladimir Tarasenko ($8,600) has continued his revitalization, with 14 points in his last 10 games. Ivan Barbashev ($6,100) is having a great season and had two goals and two assists in his last game. Pavel Buchnevich ($7,500) completes this all-Russian trio, and he has been excellent with 35 points in 34 games.
St. Louis will face the Seattle Kraken on Friday. It's a home game for the Kraken, but they are playing on the second night of a back-to-back. Seattle allows the fourth-most goals per game and will be starting goalie Joey Daccord, who has really struggled this campaign.
Either of these lines make for good stacks in a game that could see the Blues put up a lot of goals.
Minnesota Wild
The Minnesota Wild are playing a different brand of hockey than their reputation. They aren't a boring, low-event team anymore. They are third in the NHL in goals per game and should be able to score in tonight's matchup.
Minnesota's first line has been one of the best in the league. Kirill Kaprizov ($9,400) got off to a slower start than many were expecting, but since then, he has 33 points in his last 19 games. He's tied for the team lead in goals with Ryan Hartman ($7,000), who's having a breakout season. It helps playing with Kaprizov and Mats Zuccarello ($6,700), both of whom are elite playmakers. These guys link up on the first power play, which is great for fantasy purposes because they are the three best options to stack on the Wild this season.
The Wild will take on the Chicago Blackhawks in a divisional matchup. Chicago has not been good and has been a team we've targeted all year long. They've improved a bit of late, but Chicago has shown they can still be got at as they recently allowed six goals to the Arizona Coyotes.
Minnesota likely will fly under the radar with so many great stacking options available to us. Their full correlation and dynamic players give them the upside to be the best stack of the night.
Florida Panthers
The Florida Panthers did it again last night. They won 6-0 and continued their torrid stretch of scoring. Since the holiday break, they've scored a stunning 5.54 goals per game. There is little any team can do to slow them down at this point.
Florida has been getting contributions throughout the lineup, which is what you have to have to score that many goals per game. The Aleksander Barkov ($9,100) line was great last night, as the captain had two goals and an assist. Sam Reinhart ($6,800) has recently been put on this line and had three assists, giving him 14 points in his last 10 games. Carter Verhaeghe ($5,700) continues to produce despite not being on the top power play, notching six goals and 10 points in his last 10 games.
The second line is just as dangerous for Florida. Jonathan Huberdeau ($9,300) has a hot streak of 21 points in 10 games, and that has him up to second in the league with 54 points. Anthony Duclair ($6,400) scored another goal last night to bring him to 17. That's tied with Barkov and Sam Bennett ($6,900) for the most on the team.
Florida is on the road and facing the Vancouver Canucks. These teams just played last week, and Florida won 5-2. Tonight, the Panthers' implied team total of 4.01 does not suggest they will struggle with the back-to-back or the matchup.
There are a few different ways to stack the Panthers. You could just do the straight line stacks of one of the top two lines and get two of the three guys correlated on the power play. Another option is to take Barkov, Huberdeau, one of Reinhart/Duclair and Aaron Ekblad ($7,100) to get a high-powered power-play stack. Whatever you do, it's hard to go wrong when playing some combination of Florida's top guys.
Others to Consider: Pittsburgh Penguins, Tampa Bay Lightning, New York Islanders
Nicholas Vazquez is not a FanDuel employee. In addition to providing DFS gameplay advice, Nicholas Vazquez also participates in DFS contests on FanDuel using his personal account, username hbyanksman. 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.
