Friday Jan 23rd NHL DFS Slate Breakdown

Okay, I actually mean it this time. With 8 games on Friday, and the fact that I couldn’t think of anything more creative than going game-by-game, I have to move quick. You know I suck at this, but the writing is always good, so I’ll spare you my complaining (I’ve been losing. A lot).

Let’s get into Friday. Unlike the other Friday slate previews, I won’t be posting the lineup for every team. Sacrifices must be made.

The main slate starts at 7PM EST with two games, including a Chicago home game for some reason, an 8PM game, two 9PM games and wraps up with three 10PM puck drops. Nothing on the 30s because this is the NHL, and it’s actually great that all the games are in intermission at the same time!

I keep lists of beat writers for every team in the league, if you want a headstart in checking your stacks and your goalies. The NHL one includes all 32 teams and is useful in the lead up to a big slate, or as your Twitter homepage.

https://x.com/FakeMoods/lists

The rainbow sheet functions by calculating performances on a game-by-game basis while adjusting for opponent to generate a performance above baseline (that accounts for schedule strength). I then line up each team offensively with their opponent defensively to generate the matchups displayed below. All stats are all L10 games 5v5 stats, which also means there are factors specifically unaccounted such as current lineup notes (injuries/returns) and special teams.

All stats from naturalstattrick.com unless otherwise noted.

Odds and Totals from DK Sportsbook

Tampa (-265) @ Chicago (+215) ||| o5.5 -135

One night after Women’s College Basketball forced a Minnesota start time of 8:40PM, Chicago is bumped up to 6PM local on Friday so that ESPN can air the… XGames.

Are you fucking serious? This league is so doomed.

Tampa has been awesome, while Chicago is fresh off a shootout win in Carolina. This is an all-time letdown spot, with Tampa waiting for them in Chicago (why is a team going from Carolina to Chicago to drop the puck an hour early instead of to Tampa? The NHL!) and likely without Jason Dickinson again after he missed on Thursday due to illness.

Kucherov has been one of the best players in the NHL over the last ten games, racking up 7 goals and 17(!!) assists, yet his shot volume has fallen largely due to poor luck. With 5.5 attempts per game, he’s not at his season-average, but is getting just 40% of those attempts on net, making his shot numbers look even weaker.

You can’t really build around Tampa without Kucherov, and with no Point Brandon Hagel has been elevated to the PP1. Hagel-Cirelli-Kucherov is a top stack of the night, 38 expected and 42 actual FPPG for $22.3k.

Darren Raddysh also deserves consideration, $6700 is a tough pill to swallow but he’s a way to stack around Kucherov a bit differently, if you aren’t into Hagel and/or Cirelli.

Nothing on Chicago stands out to me, though I should note in his return to the lineup on Thursday after a long injury stint, Frank Nazar double-shifted throughout, played a ton with Bedard including late on the PP1 over Ryan Greene, and managed 7 shot attempts while priced at $4300. Artyom Levshunov was benched late, so keep an eye on his status for Friday’s game. Matt Grzelcyk, if he is scratched, would likely elevate to PP1 for the dead minimum.

MOODS’ DUDES: Nikita Kucherov ($9200), Brandon Hagel ($7700), Darren Raddysh ($6700)

Vegas (-120) @ Toronto (+100) ||| o6.5 +110

Mitch Marner rolls into town with a Vegas squad that has losses this month to Chicago, St. Louis, Philadelphia, and Boston, only Boston of whom is (barely) in a playoff spot. They also required overtime to defeat Los Angeles, Toronto, and Winnipeg, none of whom are in the playoffs either. They also were trailing 1-0 against Nashville deep into the 2nd period, before rattling off seven goals in roughly 20 minutes of game time. That’s 8 of 11 games that I can poke clear and obvious holes in, while the remainder are the Sharks (clobbered them 7-2), Blues (4-2 with an ENG to close), and Columbus (5-3). Their schedule has been weak, to say the least, and they’ve been rather awful at creating offense at 5v5, relying on elite finishing and a highly efficient power play for their output.

I am far from a Vegas guy at this point in time, and this game looks like one of the worst on the slate, despite the obvious appeal of the Knights and Leafs on paper. Eichel and Matthews both feel too expensive, as Kucherov is cheaper somehow and MacKinnon tees off against the Flyers later, not to mention Celebrini in a matchup where his team is favored (!!). I expect Vegas lines to be a mess, as they’ve now lost two straight with the Flyers loss and the Bruins on Thursday, where they switched up their lines dramatically.

Good luck trying to figure Vegas out. Fortunately for me, these players are just too expensive, even with the obvious Marner narrative. Say, does anyone know how Marner does in big games in Toronto? Tomas Hertl would be the key player to look for, as if he’s playing with Marner and/or Dorofeyev at 5v5 I’d feel much better than I do currently about the play.

Toronto doesn’t seem like they’ll have Nylander, though a twitter search indicates that everyone in the world is currently relitigating Mitch Marner’s career and using Nylander as a comparison point, so I’m afraid I am not finding anything useful. Matias Maccelli has been useful and is $3400, while Knies has been hurt, bad, and has fallen all the way to $4500. Even Morgan Rielly ($4400) doesn’t seem like an option, as the performance just isn’t there, be it on the scoresheet or in the underlying attempts/blocks. Toronto’s plan seems to be to sit back and defend well, then wait for Auston Matthews to do cool stuff. Matthews does seem to be back, so it’s not a terrible strategy, but it means I’m really reluctant to play depth lines of Toronto, and as-covered TOR1 is expensive with Matthews’ price.

Rasmus Andersson seems unlikely to be cleared to play in time for Friday, so Kaedan Korczak should remain in the top four at the dead minimum price. It’s not great, but I’ve seen worse. Dylan Coghlan is back, and he’s been fantasy-relevant in limited minutes in past years. I don’t see why Korczak isn’t a better option for more minutes, but Coghlan is another minimum salary option. OEL is hurt for Toronto, but $3400 Jake McCabe or other depth TOR D seem worse than VGK guys, even if they aren’t getting secondary PP time.

MOODS’ DUDES: Auston Matthews ($9700), Tomas Hertl ($6100), Kaedan Korczak ($2500)

St. Louis (+150) @ Dallas (-180) ||| o5.5 -125

Pius Suter appears ready to return, but there is no indication of lines from the STL beats. My best guess is Holloway will return for Berggren, while Stenberg will draw out for Suter, and this will be your Friday lineup.

Jimmy Snuggerud is the only player on St. Louis who is worth talking about, outside of the obligatory “he is $4500” Jordan Kyrou mention. It just isn’t working in St. Louis this year. Snuggerud is averaging 13 xFPPG over the last ten (6.5 shot attempts per game), yet the actual results have him at 7.3 DKPts/game. That’s not good enough, even for just $3900, and it’s tough to find true and meaningful ceiling with how St. Louis plays. Mix in a Dallas team that is returning home from Columbus fresh off of being served a 1-0 loss, I don’t see a ton of opportunity offensively for Snuggerud or the Blues.

For Dallas, Mikko Rantanen was left home for Thursday’s game due to the flu, and I’d be a bit surprised if he was available Friday as well. That means a healthy dose of Matt Duchene, seemingly, and when the going got tough at least you can say with certainty that Dallas leaned on their top six exclusively, with all of Robertson, Johnston, Duchene, and Hintz exceeding 20 minutes TOI on Thursday and even Bourque picking up 17 minutes. Jeremy Swayman may protest, but I suspect not having Mikko Rantanen makes your offense worse. This game profiles similarly to VGK-TOR, and while my fade of that one may be risky, this one seems significantly less risky. This game stinks, no thank you.

MOODS’ DUDES: Jimmy Snuggerud ($3900) — maybe a shot prop? Is he really gonna do DFS stuff? Probably not, that 4.5 or 5.8 is gonna hit so hard. His volume recently has been totally sustainable, however.

Washington (-142) @ Calgary (+120) ||| o5.5 -135

Pros for playing Washington: their opponent is bad. The Flames have also been bad the past ten games, allowing well above average goals, attempts, and xGs at 5v5. It’s been something of a trend for Calgary lately:

Calgary’s worm is inching along, looking redder by the day.

Cons? Whatever the hell this is, from Wednesday’s loss to Vancouver:

Ovi playing 23 minutes seems… excessive, especially in a game without a ton of PP opportunities. Carbery has been doing a pretty good job of managing his minutes and role, so I am very curious to see if this role continues for the Great Eight as Washington battles a stretch of injuries and losses. Ovi has been fine lately, though not $7500 good if it weren’t for this awesome matchup, and common stack partners like Strome, Chychrun, and Leonard all seem quite expensive. Tom Wilson returned but was not good fantasy-wise by any respect, so I think I prefer Strome and praying he can have a Ryan O’Reilly esque run to being fantasy relevant for a couple weeks even at an elevated tag. It’s hard to trust the other Caps’ minutes if Wilson’s going to operate as a top-liner and Ovi will be used in every offensive situation possible, as Leonard, McMichael, and Frank have all been useful, but are mainly limited by minutes.

Calgary received Zach Whitecloud in the Rasmus Andersson deal and is using him in that spot, playing 22 and 24 minutes in his first two games, with PK time. The PP role was divided up and handed to Hunter Brzustewicz for now (though you’d think Zayne Parekh factors in sooner or later), who is now set to be scratched in favor of Joel Hanley and Brayden Pachal on the third pair. At $2600, I think Whitecloud may be getting first PP2 opportunities here, if this isn’t a case of them wanting to use a Mikael Backlund type at the point instead. He’s in play with or without the PP role, but that would be a nice little bonus, especially because we know how much the CGY PP sets up for their (former) twin horsemen to blast low-danger shots from the point.

Jonathan Huberdeau should be back Friday, but Thursday’s lines did not include him and we were then told to ignore the lines. What else is there to do but fade Calgary, anyway?

MOODS’ DUDES: Alex Ovechkin ($7500), Dylan Strome ($6500), Zach Whitecloud ($2600)

Philadelphia (+245) @ Colorado (-305) ||| o6.5 +100

There’s not much to say about Philly, heading into Colorado. So I’ll keep this complaint brief:

Michkov should be playing more. He looks much better than earlier this season. Last year, when he started poorly, his TOI dropped, and when he played well, it rose (even under Torts) until it peaked at the end of the year under Shaw, and he was dominating.

I plotted Michkov’s expected fantasy point generation (all situations, per 20 minutes of actual TOI) and plotted it with a rolling 5-game lean. You can see Michkov started the first 10 games or so very slowly, but since then has not been below the 9 xFP/20 mark but twice for limited time this year. But we aren’t seeing any sort of TOI increase, even as the team is stumbling, crashing out of a playoff spot lately.

That’s a problem, and playing dudes like Garnet Hathaway literally just cost the Flyers a valuable point (who, by the way, played more than Michkov in that game) in Utah. I’d love to see Tocchet figure out how to develop a young player, but he’s making me wish we had Torts back, because at least Torts didn’t bullshit anyone.

On the Colorado side, I’m going to go out on a limb and state that playing MacKinnon for 22 minutes with Victor freaking Olofsson is actually really bad for MacKinnon’s outlook. Yes, Colorado dominated that game, but take a look at this nonsense:

Olofsson is not a good hockey player. We know this, we’ve seen it for years. They also placed Olofsson on the PP1 instead of Lehkonen or Nichushkin, and I just don’t get it. Let’s normalize playing good hockey players in DFS, deal?

Colorado’s good players, unfotunately, are quite expensive, with even Brock Nelson checking in at $7000 as the 4th most expensive PP1 option. Maybe we get a Ross Colton elevation (who is significantly better than Olofsson, even if their fantasy outlook is ~similar). Sam Malinski looks to continue to capitalize on increased usage without Devon Toews, as next to Cale Makar he looks like a bonafade fantasy superstar. He has played 5 games of 20+ TOI in a row, and over that stretch he has 11.4 xFFPG and 9.9 actual, looking something like a clone of Thomas Harley in that he’s sustaining fantasy results without points, thanks to 7.8 shot attempts per game and over 2 blocks per game despite just one assist. If he chips in on a couple of goals, a 30+ point night is not out of the question.

The Avs have a pretty good matchup, but I do wonder if Olofsson drags their ownership way up relative to Tampa, because I would choose Tampa straight up. I’m probably going to be fading MacKinnon once again as a result, but Malinski may be an actual lock at $4200, even with no PP time. This dude rocks.

MOODS’ DUDES: Nathan MacKinnon ($10200), Sam Malinski ($4200), Matvei Michkov ($3800)

Anaheim (-105) @ Seattle (-115) ||| o6.5 +105

Anaheim is setting up to be without Leo Carlsson, Troy Terry, and Mason McTavish on Friday. Yikes. This is their current lineup:

Defenseman Oliver Moore plays a fair amount of forward here. At least they found a way to get Cutter up to 18 minutes… with Ryan Poehling and Jeffrey Viel… but he was on the PP1 that looks fairly optimized. With no Carlsson I expect Cutter to do a lot of puck transporting and puck handling, in addition to being a ready and willing shooter. $6800 is a pretty fair price for the matchup and role, though there may be an even bigger giant lurking in the Anaheim shadows. Beckett Sennecke has taken a sizable step forward in recent weeks, with an xFPPG that actually slightly outdoes Cutter, a $5200 price tag, and plays/production that have caught up to his talent and pedigree. As a pick’em in a 6.5 total, I am pretty interested in the idea of getting this block, locking in nearly every ounce of production Anaheim is going to muster with some PP1 correlation as well.

Jackson LaCombe is a bit expensive, and Zellweger has seemingly fallen a bit out of favor here. Mintyukov is no longer on the “good” PP unit, so I don’t have a ton of interest in the Ducks D other than Trouba, who is a classic double bonus candidate of shots + blocks.

SEA1 (McCann-Beniers-Eberle) is $14.3k and is averaging 29 xFPPG and actual FPPG over the last ten, and that’s with Eberle dragging behind at just 6.9 (not very nice).

The main downside to SEA1 is that they just don’t play enough, as SEA when healthy rolls 4 lines. They’re probably not good enough to demand 20+ minutes, but it’d be nice to see it every now and then to know it’s in the bag. With McCann likely topping out at 16 minutes, you’re heavily reliant on efficiency to reach seperator outcomes.

Vince Dunn has typically played a lot, but for the last month his TOI has been oddly low. He’s also been fairly productive, but I prefer the SEA1 forwards anyway and don’t entirely trust that Dunn isn’t dealing with an injury.

MOODS’ DUDES: Cutter Gauthier ($6800), Beckett Sennecke ($5200), Jared McCann ($5200)

New York Rangers (+114) @ San Jose (-135) ||| o6.5 -125

The Sharks are favorites against the Rangers. This is… hard to believe, even acknowledging that this is a Rangers team missing both Igor and Adam Fox.

By xGs, this is one of the better games of the night, and by real goals, this is by far the best spot of the night. The Rangers look fine enough, and it’s really hard to look away from Panarin right now. Priced at just $8300, he’s not the only player on his line who feels underpriced, as Vincent Trocheck shares the ice at 5v5 and on the PP1, adding in some PK time too, and for $5900 is well over 2x xFPPG that salary. Alexis Lafreniere is doing Lafreniere things, which is to say not much, but the underlying process is really strong at the moment, with 5 attempts and .38 ixG per game over the last ten.

Vladislav Gavrikov is (for some reason) running the PP1, even scoring a PPG in Anaheim the other night. All of this strong top six production comes in a situation where the Rangers are getting slaughtered, putting Panarin on the trade block, and calling it a season for the most part.

While it’s tough to figure out what the Rangers are right now, it’s not particularly difficult to figure out the Sharks. It’s the Macklin Celebrini and Friends show out there, and with Will Smith back in the lineup, we have a bonafide stud on his wing once more. Macklin’s price fell a good bit from last time we saw him, and while $9000 isn’t cheap, he’s been worth every penny, averaging 18 xFPPG on 8.7 iCF/game with sterling playmaking and shot quality. This game should be a fun one, and with Kucherov and MacKinnon in such obvious spots, I am very interested in how Macklin, Panarin, and Jack Hughes (up next) fall in line ownership-wise in the next tier down. Will Smith is among my favorite plays on the entire slate, as he is set for ~18-20 minutes of work, a lock on the PP1 across the formation from Macklin, and is rounding back into game shape after missing a long stretch of the season yet has 14 attempts in 3 games.

MOODS’ DUDES: Artemi Panarin ($8300), Vincent Trocheck ($5900), Will Smith ($4500)

New Jersey (-155) @ Vancouver (+130) ||| o5.5 -130

Dougie Hamilton is on a six-game point streak, with 4 primary assists in the span and 5 shot attempts per game. His price is bafflingly low, at just $4300, making him someone who you could very well be fine with even if he only gets an assist, two shots, and a blocked shot. I think he has tons of upside for more, manning the PP1 with no Luke Hughes (LTIR) with Jack, Bratt, Nico, and Connor Brown (?).

Vancouver is a mess defensively, no surprise, and could be the cure that NJ has been searching for as they struggle to put the puck in the net. Meier-Hughes-Bratt has been good for getting Timo quality looks, not so much goals, while Jack Hughes has also been a touch snakebitten as well. All-in-all, this line costs $19k, but leaving $5k Bratt off gives you a $14100 stack that is averaging 27 xFPPG over the last ten, and even though Timo isn’t on PP1, you can tack on Dougie to get some PP1 coverage and get 3 bonafide fantasy studs at an incredibly reasonable price with solid underlying metrics and a fantastic matchup.

I must mention Glass and Gritsyuk, fresh off of their dismantling of the Oilers, though I don’t know that Vancouver’s depth is a matchup to exploit (as opposed to, let me check my notes, “the whole fucking thing”). In addition to combining on the Devils two goals in a 2-1 win, they controlled play to an incredible degree:

Vancouver is relatively out of the picture, but then again Elias Pettersson is basically being priced as if he’s Matty Beniers. It’s hard to argue with the pricing, but I just wanted to make clear that EP fucking 40 is $5200 and no one will even bat an eye. 2019 Moods is going crazy patting himself on the back for his “EP40 is actually bad” take. Just ignore when in 24-25 July preview I ranked Pettersson as a first round Best Puck pick…

Jake DeBrusk has been Timo but on a bad team (13 xFPPG, 7.5 actual), while Evander Kane was top line last game, scored… but still maxed out at 15 minutes TOI. I love Evander’s fantasy profile, but there are so many options that he feels like a late-slate only option unless we get good information that he’s a PP1 fixture or something.

MOODS’ DUDES: Jack Hughes ($8000), Dougie Hamilton ($4300), Evander Kane ($4300)

As always, thanks for reading!

Follow me on X @FakeMoods, and to subscribe to this newsletter. I write ~once a week during the NHL DFS season, previewing DFS slates or reviewing the major contests on DraftKings. You should also subscribe to DJ Mitchell’s YouTube channel, where we stream MSP live (or post right after recording) on Monday and Wednesday nights. We plan to be live on Saturday as well to go over the massive day of games around the league. I am posting some stuff on my own personal YT channel as well, with a few pre-season Underdog drafts up at the moment and our preseason betting deep dive. And join the Discord (DM me if you want in the MSP Discord), if you somehow haven’t already. The Morning Skate Podcast is on iTunes, Sticher, Spotify, and (probably) any other podcast app of your choosing!