5 NHL FanDuel Studs to Target on Thursday 4/14/22
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 brings us 12 games in all. Let's get at it!
Nathan MacKinnon, Center, Colorado Avalanche
FanDuel Salary: $9,900
The back-to-back scenario should not scare people away from looking at Nathan MacKinnon on Thursday night against the New Jersey Devils.
It has been quite a fiery stretch for the center. He has seven goals and five assists in his last five games. If it appears like MacKinnon is playing angry, he is.
The best part is that the center played only slightly more than 15 minutes on Wednesday night against the Los Angeles Kings. All he did was net a hat trick with two assists, six shots on goal, and blocked a shot in that ice time.
MacKinnon has a projection of 21.4 FanDuel points, which tops all skaters on this huge slate. Given his 2.4 real-world points a game over the past five contests, MacKinnon has a through-the-roof ceiling.
Alex Ovechkin, Wing, Washington Capitals
FanDuel Salary: $9,700
Alex Ovechkin leads one of the hottest road teams in the NHL against the Toronto Maple Leafs on Thursday night. The Maple Leafs will have to start Erik Kallgren or Jack Campbell in goal again.
As the goals continue to pile up, Ovechkin now approaches the 50-goal plateau. He has five goals in his last seven games, including a four-game streak with at least one tally. The winger has 20 or more FanDuel points in three of his past four contests.
The huge slate features a myriad of options, but the Washington Capitals' forward is among the top plays, per usual.
Johnny Gaudreau, Wing, Calgary Flames
FanDuel Salary: $9,300
It feels crazy to think that John Gaudreau has topped the 100 real-world point mark -- yet this is true.
The Calgary Flames' winger has four goals and seven assists in his last seven games. That is right about on target with how Gaudreau has produced all season long.
Vegas has quite a few issues when it comes to defense. The Golden Knights just gave up five goals to the Vancouver Canucks on Monday night. Yes, that is good news for Gaudreau and those who stack the Flames' first line.
With the way Calgary surged on Tuesday (four-goal third period) at home against Seattle, they could be in for a big night versus Vegas..
Cale Makar, Defenseman, Colorado Avalanche
FanDuel Salary: $7,100
This is one of those times where letting the good times roll is perfectly acceptable.
Cale Makar against the New Jersey Devils feels like a matchup made for television. The reality is Makar has 14 shots on goal, 17 scoring chances, and six blocked shots.
In the game Wednesday versus Los Angeles, Makar had a power-play goal, three assists, and five shots on goal. New Jersey is allowing more than 3.7 goals per game since February 1st.
Right now, the Avalanche are projected to score an appealing 4.24 goals, according to our algorithm, and that might be even a little low.
Ville Husso, Goalie, St. Louis Blues
One of the sensible stud options on Thursday night is to utilize Ville Husso in a lot of lineups.
The St. Louis Blues are on the road in Buffalo, but the goaltender has been in good form, allowing just 11 goals in his last five contests -- all of which were wins.
Husso offers the potential to pad his stats some more on Thursday. Not only has he faced 79 shots in his previous two games, but Buffalo is averaging 33 shots per 60 at home since March 1st.
One more thing: St. Louis has the greatest road win probability of the night at 68.7%, per our numbers.
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.
