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 spending 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 spending salary in the right spots when building our lineups tonight.
Monday night now has six games on the schedule. Here are some studs.
Nathan MacKinnon, Center, Colorado Avalanche
FanDuel Salary: $10,200
The Colorado Avalanche and Nathan MacKinnon face the much-maligned Washington Capitals on Monday night at home.
Washington hit a bit of reality in their last road game when they allowed four goals in a wild 8-4 win against Montreal. It does seem that Washington players are becoming more and more of a contrarian play based on Washington's road record alone.
Though MacKinnon has his not-so-good-moments, he is on fire right now. The center has nine goals and five assists in his last seven games, adding 32 shots and three blocked shots.
Valeri Nichushkin and Andre Burakovsky are stackable options alongside MacKinnon on Monday night.
Matthew Tkachuk, Wing, Calgary Flames
FanDuel Salary: $8,400
The Calgary Flames are on the road tonight against a Chicago Blackhawks team that cares little about defense.
This is a time to utilize Matthew Tkachuk, who has 40-plus FanDuel points in two of his three previous games.
Chicago's penalty kill has bottomed out at 70% since April 1st. That's no fooling! Also, Tkachuk has seven goals in his last seven games.
The Blackhawks have given up 44 goals over their last 10 games. All signs point to Calgary rolling.
Alex Pietrangelo, Defenseman, Vegas Golden Knights
FanDuel Salary: $6,700
The Vegas Golden Knights play the worst road team in the NHL -- the New Jersey Devils.
The Devils are 10-25-3 away from Prudential Center and have allowed 3.9 goals per game when not in Newark since March 1st.
Alex Pietrangelo has had a bit of a rough season with just 13 goals and 28 assists in 74 games. However, he is averaging 3.02 shots per game and 2.07 blocked shots per contest.
Add into the mix that New Jersey could check out at any time. They did this in Boston when they gave up six goals in just 20 minutes.
With the slate stacked the way it is, Cale Makar is a very good alternative, especially if Devon Toews is held out. However, Pietrangelo and some of his teammates have huge ceilings in this spot.
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.