5 NHL FanDuel Studs to Target on Tuesday 4/26/22
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.
Tuesday night fires in with 13 games. It is time to get the final week of the regular season truly started!
Auston Matthews, Center, Toronto Maple Leafs
FanDuel Salary: $10,300
There is great news for the Toronto Maple Leafs? They play the Detroit Red Wings on Tuesday night. Now, Auston Matthews has one of the best matchups of the night and maybe the week.
It has been interesting for the center, as he has no goals in his last five games. He does have 11 shots on goal and 13 scoring chances since returning from injury, though. Opportunities keep on knocking, and against one of the worst defenses in Detroit, that will only keep occurring.
The Toronto pivot has played around 47 minutes in those two games and has shown no signs of slowing down any.
Matthews and Toronto are projected to score 3.99 goals, which is second among teams on this gigantic slate. That seems low given Detroit can allow five goals in a blink of an eye, not counting that game against the New Jersey Devils.
Kevin Fiala, Wing, Minnesota Wild
FanDuel Salary: $7,500
Now, the trendy choice would be to spend up for Kirill Kaprizov. That is viable, but how about Kevin Fiala?
He has been amazing of late with five consecutive performances of 25-plus FanDuel points. Overall, the Minnesota Wild winger has 5 goals and 10 assists over that span.
As is the case during these "heaters," Fiala is firing pucks from everywhere. He has 22 shots on goal and 26 scoring chances during this time.
The gigantic slate will make it a challenge to mini-stack much, but Fiala and Minnesota are likely to score four or more goals. Do not touch a player like Alex Ovechkin here.
Steven Stamkos, Wing, Tampa Bay Lightning
FanDuel Salary: $7,900
It is hard to believe that Steven Stamkos has a salary under $8,000 for the Tampa Bay Lightning, and yet he does.
The Tampa Bay Lightning forward has been on another level. Stamkos has 5 goals and 12 assists in his last six games while qualifying as a wing on FanDuel.
Stamkos has six consecutive performances of 20-plus FanDuel points and also has fired in 19 shots and blocked 4 more during this span.
With the game being at home, Tampa Bay has a 70.1% chance of winning and is projected to score 3.53 goals.
Tampa Bay has one of the higher octane opponents to pepper with shots. After all, Columbus is allowing 36 shots per 60 since February 1st. Get in with Stamkos then maybe add Erik Cernak for value.
Victor Hedman, Defenseman, Tampa Bay Lightning
FanDuel Salary: $7,300
What if one just takes the plunge and spends way up to pair Stamkos with Victor Hedman?
Any player in this kind of matchup immediately jumps to the top of the list. Hedman has a goal and 12 helpers in his previous five contests. That includes a great floor of 17 shots and 10 blocked shots, as well.
In their last game, Tampa Bay continued their offensive-minded play, scoring eight times against the Florida Panthers. Two of Hedman's four assists came via the man advantage.
With several stud defensemen in less than prime spots, Hedman, by far, has the plum matchup in this top group.
Juuse Saros, Goalie, Nashville Predators
One of the more odd ideas that is starting to make some sense is to look at Juuse Saros tonight against Calgary.
The Flames are not an easy team to play against, but Saros stopped 19 of 21 shots in a win his last time out against them.
Saros has alternated wins and losses over his last eight starts, but he should see more shots.
Finally, Nashville does not have a win probability above 50%, but given the Flames are on the road, this is a risk worth taking.
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.
