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.
Tueday night fires in with 14 games in all. Let's get at it!
Auston Matthews, Center, Toronto Maple Leafs
FanDuel Salary: $10,400
The excellent news for the Toronto Maple Leafs? They play the Buffalo Sabres on Tuesday night. The even better news? Auston Matthews has been scoring a goal a game for 50 games.
It has been one of the hottest stretches a goal-score has ever seen. Matthews is up to a whopping 58 goals in 67 games. That is a 71 goal pace in 82 games for the center.
The Toronto pivot has nine straight games of 20-plus FanDuel Points, and a tenth is almost a better than 50-50 chance on Tuesday given the home matchup.
Matthews has a projection of 18.0 FanDuel points, which is third among all centers on this gigantic slate. That seems low given he is averaging 7.4 shots on goal and 2.4 real-world points per game during this latest scoring binge.
Max Pacioretty, Wing, Vegas Golden Knights
FanDuel Salary: $8,300
Max Pacioretty returned against the Arizona Coyotes and promptly scored a goal, had four shots, and generated six scoring chances. That was all in just 14 minutes.
He has another solid matchup against the Vancouver Canucks on Tuesday night. The venue does not matter here as the road team seems to be winning this matchup of late.
As Jack Eichel is likely to still flank him, that gives Pacioretty a huge boost? Guess what else does? Vancouver's penalty kill is just 73.8% (30th) in the league and converts at just 72.5% at home.
The gigantic slate will make it a challenge to mini-stack much anywhere but Pacioretty is one of the more affordable studs when compared to Alex Ovechkin and evenJonathan Huberdeau.
Chris Kreider, Wing, New York Rangers
FanDuel Salary: $8,300
It is crazy to think that Chris Kreider is approaching 50 goals and yet here we are. The winger has 49 goals (including a league-leading 25 on the power-play) entering a huge clash against division-rival Carolina on Tuesday night.
The New York Rangers forward has been red-hot of late with three goals and two assists in his last three games. He also has ten shots on goal and 13 scoring chances during that span.
Carolina has shown some vulnerability of late as well. New York can see the "whites of their eyes" when it comes to the division standings. The Hurricanes have yielded just 18 goals in their last seven games but are just 3-4 in that span.
With the game being at MSG Garden, few excel on a sloppy ice surface better than the shifty Kreider. Carolina also will not be able to utilize their top defenders fully against him since Gerrard Gallant has last line-change.
New York has some slightly intriguing value here with Frank Vatrano if one does want to pair another player with Kreider.
Roman Josi, Defenseman, San Jose Sharks
FanDuel Salary: $8,000
Sometimes it just boils down to "a matter of trust" as Billy Joel once exclaimed.
Any player in a matchup against the San Jose Sharks can be considered a good one. Josi did struggle a bit against the Pittsburgh Penguins and Florida Panthers but the Sharks have lost six straight games as they have packed it in for this season.
In their last meeting, Josi had four assists in an easy victory for Nashville. Furthermore, he had seven shots on goal and eight scoring chances.
We have the Predators currently projected to score 3.00 goals, and that feels low. Josi, even at his salary, is a must-play on a night where Nashville will need some offense from the blueline.
Jacob Markstrom, Goalie, Calgary Flames
One of the wiser decisions may just be to rosterJacob Markstrom of the Calgary Flames on Tuesday night.
They're hosting the expansion Seattle Kraken and Markstrom is riding a three-game winning streak. Markstrom just stopped 27 of 28 shots against the Kraken on Saturday night in a 4-1 victory.
Markstrom has a good matchup against a team that will average in somewhere close to 30 shots on goal Tuesday.
Finally, Calgary has the greatest win probabilities of the night at 74.5%.
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.