Happy Friday the 13th. It’s a two-game slate tonight, which is horrifying. I am not sure why I said I would do this write-up. I think I looked and saw the Kings and Blues were on the slate, and was excited to write about them. But then I read some Kings stuff and… yeah, they pretty much nail it. And the Blues just went out and beat Carolina, so… that’s just kinda out there now. On the Kings… I will repackage some of it, but I won’t pretend the beat writers’ work is my own. For both of these teams, just remember that I was the original believer. Must credit moods.
This week was an NHL disaster for yours truly, as Tuesday and Thursday I felt like I had solid reads and just whiffed on the execution. Tuesday’s STL1 outburst was negated by the fact that I effectively chose Mavrik Bourque over a 30-bomb from Jimmy Snuggerud, and then Thursday I came off Dallas for Anaheim and was rightly punished. At least I had a better night than another Matthew(s)…
The two game slate locks at 7PM with the Kings @ Islanders while 8PM has the Blues hosting the Oilers, with St. Louis flying in from Raleigh and Edmonton from Dallas for a back-to-back.
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.
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
Los Angeles (+124) @ NY Islanders (-148) ||| o5.5 -115
The Kings practiced on Thursday
At first glance, the rainbow sheet is adamant that the wrong game on this slate is a 6.5 total. And I visually agree with that, in spite of the snoozer that was Tuesday’s Kings-Bruins affair. Not only do I think this team is fundamentally built for speed and tempo, and now has a functionally elite PP1, but their coach is pushing the team speed angle.
Under Interim Head Coach D.J. Smith, there’s been a massive focus on upping the pace the Kings play at.
This team speed, of course, is the team speed that effectively neutralized the 24-25 Edmonton Oilers, before coaching decisions and tactics unraveled each game, and ultimately, the series.
The first two games of this series were just so, so, so impressive from the Kings against what we knew was a peak Oilers squad.
Now, that same Edmonton team easily dismantled the Stars, and just got blitzkrieged by them literally Thursday night (without Rantanen and Hintz!), so there’s some element of translation here to consider as it pertains to retconning that series and what it tells us about both teams.
It has been extremely obvious, however, that under Smith this is the intention. Check out this comparison of the isolated impacts of the two Kings’ coaches this year, from Micah at hockeyviz:
There’s not a ton of sample here for Smith, of course, but taken in totality Hiller’s tenure was defined by sacrificing offense for defense (check out the last two Hiller seasons for the least surprising info of all time, premium hockey viz feature but you should pay for this website anyway if you enjoy informed analysis on the sport you are presumably gambling on). Adding Artemi Panarin should necessitate maximizing his skillset, which involves a level of artistry, conducting the play in a Kucherov-esque fashion where no matter how quickly the players on the ice are moving, he’s always moving slower yet remaining in total control.
So far, in eight games we’ve seen Panarin largely glued to Adrian Kempe, which is undoubtedly the correct decision. Somewhat shockingly, over this span (which did include some missed time for Drew Doughty too), Brandt Clarke has been a PP1 fixture and garnered 60% of the available 5v5 time with this duo. That’s a stunning development for Clarke, who has largely been relegated to depth roles in his nascent career. From the start of 2023 (Clarke debuted in 2022, bouncing in and out of the lineup) through the Olympic break in 2026, Clarke had played just 21% of Kempe’s ice time. It had nudged a bit up over 33% this year alone, but nowhere near the levels it should have been.
No doubt about it, Jim Hiller’s inability to rely on Brandt Clarke to generate offense and draw the best out of Adrian Kempe was the number one hindrance to an otherwise playoff-worthy NHL team. Adrian Kempe + Brandt Clarke as an on-ice pair over 3 seasons and nearly 600 5v5 minutes generated 3.8 GF/60, and depending on when you viewed this you could make an argument that this duo was as impactful at creating offense as McDavid + Draisaitl.
There really has not been enough sample to take a victory lap over any on-ice results splits (in fact, Panarin+Kempe have been more productive away from Clarke despite a lower CF/60), but their CF/60 checks in at a whopping 75 as a trio… Nathan MacKinnon’s all-world season has him at 77 over the course of the year, Andrei Svechnikov at 74 on that Carolina first line.
You take a peek under the hood here, and everything is absolutely dialed in. Not only are the Kings looking to produce offense and playing with tempo (and a noted lack of talent down their lineup, which teams like Montreal have been able to exploit), but the matchup is with an Islanders team that is perfectly comfortable letting their horses run and relying on their goaltending advantage with a Vezina-level Sorokin season.
LA will be splitting PP1 across Laferriere and Byfield, as confirmed in practice, and this has been the case for the past few days. Ultimately, you can use either Laferriere or Byfield, there’s no real way to know which one is going to stick, but Clarke, Panarin, and Kempe are absolutely some of the best fantasy options in the entire league. Keep buying.
I’ll just let Zach Dooley cook on the PP1 (emphasis mine):
With Laferriere, he offers the right-shot option down lo that the Kings prefer with their power-play scheme. He offers a pass to Panarin, as he operates from the left side and can move higher in the zone, as Panarin moves around the offensive end of the ice. With Byfield, he presents more options for motion with regards to Adrian Kempe and Anze Kopitar. As a left-shot forward, Byfield excels at retrieving pucks, but he can cycle into the bumper position, as well as the one-timer option in the right-hand circle.
I like options. At times, it has too felt static on the power play. Guys had positions, things either worked or they didn’t and on we went. With multiple looks and a lot more puck movement, the power play feels more dangerous than it did before Panarin arrived. That threat hasn’t necessarily translated into a ton more production thus far, coming in at 20 percent over those last eight games. A slight uptick, but still not what it could be or what some of the underlying number say it’s going to be.
Since Panarin arrived, the Kings are third in shot attempts per/60 and fifth in scoring chances per/60 on the man advantage. They were 18th and 22nd, respectively, before Panarin’s arrival. To see a lot of time spent on that area is a good thing, as they look to turn chances and creation into goals. They’ll need PPG’s down the stretch, that’s for sure. Having Panarin integrated has certainly helped in those areas, with the Kings able to find their roles more easily now around what he brings.
“The biggest thing is that people fit into their roles,” Smith added. “You know the puck is going to be in his hands and when he’s got it, get open and he’ll find a way to get it to you. I think every power play has got different dynamics, and it always runs through one or two guys. He’s clearly that guy.”
Kevin Fiala is awesome, let’s not forget that, but Panarin adds an element that the Kings simply haven’t had, and as a RH shot Panarin pairs so well with the handedness of Kempe and Clarke, and I think gives this PP the flavor it’s desperately needed.
This has been your weekly Kings Corner with Moods.
There are other players on the Kings too. Scott Laughton has been hilariously productive and is just $2600. Joel Edmundson is the bare minimum on a McDrai slate. Useful.
MOODS’ DUDES: Artemi Panarin ($7200), Adrian Kempe ($6700), Brandt Clarke ($5200)
The Isles practice on Thursday featured tweaks to the top six forwards
Well, hello Cal Ritchie. Top Line, Top PP is one hell of a role alongside Bo Horvat, and he’s coming off of a multi-point game, his second of the season (and his career). For just $2900, Ritchie makes an awful lot of sense here and is clearly a centerpiece of this Isles team going forward. His production this year hasn’t been phenomenal, especially in the shots department where his iCF/60 comes in 25% lower than the league-average forward, but he’s producing primary points (Goals + Primary Assists) at an above-average level already, and is right about average in DK production per-minute.
This is the largest role he’s seen yet, presumably, and he’s got a track record of production in his juniors career. This seems like the next logical step:
stats indexed by league and age, among NHL Drafted Prospects (above 1 = better than the average, 2 would be “twice as good” rates)
Ritchie will never be a volume hound, but you just don’t need it at this price. Barzal.+ Schenn is new, at least, but there’s not much reason to think Schenn will offer up much from a rates perspective, and the pair is similarly priced to Horvat-Ritchie (and Horvat is significantly better than Barzal at generating fantasy points).
I am a bit interested to see how Matthew Schaefer is set to skate in this one, as that could sway decisions too. I’ve written about his fantasy season before, but it’s absolutely bonkers for someone as young as he is to be as consistently brilliant, with only one real swoon on the season where he seemed like a fantasy non-factor for as much as a week and a half.
Tony DeAngelo has been good enough so that it doesn’t ruin Horvat or Barzal’s offensive chances if Schaefer is not glued to them, but stacking through Schaefer will presumably be popular on a two-game slate, and it’d be nice to get the 5v5 correlation with him (or the Tony D leverage the other way) among the elite forwards.
Lee-Pageau-Holmstrom is $10.4k for ~22 xFP and ~20 FP per game, which is a fine enough number. I do think this line will see the matchup minutes with Panarin, primarily, and thus kind of want to pick on the middle six lines of LA that I think are a good bit worse (even if Kempe-Panarin will in theory happily trade chances).
MOODS’ DUDES: Bo Horvat ($7000), Matthew Schaefer ($5800), Calum Ritchie ($2900)
Edmonton (-148) @ St. Louis (+124) ||| o6.5 -115
I expect EDM changes, Draisaitl line in particular, but those specifics are not known and won’t be likely until post-7PM lock. Ingram should start, he was deemed healthy on Thursday.
There’s only really been one bad two-week stretch of play for the Oilers defensively, yet it feels absolutely engrained on our collective brains:
in and around the Olympic break, specifically, for Edmonton’s wheels to come off for a couple weeks.
The issue, of course, is they simply can’t get a save. No matter who they turn to… Stuart Skinner was as good as it got:
hockeyviz.com as well. Go there, people!
And while Stuart Skinner was technically a positive GSAA, I’m not even going to fault them too much, as their team is too good to need Stuart Skinner. Skinner is the classic goalie who is good enough to steal you games regularly, but way too inconsistent to know when those games are coming. With McDrai regularly 1) stealing games and 2) on a consistent basis, they just need a goalie who can survive the vast majority of nights. Skinner was not that for 100+ regular season games, and the playoffs were really the only indication that he is even a fit in Edmonton to begin with.
Connor Ingram, who is set to start on Friday after taking an awful collision with MacKinnon and leaving Wednesday’s game (My take that no one asked for? I think he deserved a suspension, and now I believe that even more when Mack went wild on Thursday night. You simply can’t incentivize players to recklessly drive the net. Ingram could have absolutely had his neck snapped there, the way the contact unfolded…), has been fairly decent since his emergence, but remains somewhat of a problem still.
I don’t really see McDavid and Draisaitl pairing up at 5v5 for a regular shift, so it’s largely PP or bust for me. Draisaitl has been slightly more productive over the past ten games, edging out McDavid by 2 DKPts/game despite a point and a half lower expecteds, and given my take that this game should be the 5.5 total I find it hard to believe I’ll be stacking EDM here as the highest team total. Evan Bouchard is sitting at 15 aFPPG over ten games despite just 8.6 xFPPG. That’s a huge gap, and something that is bound to regress if he doesn’t start shooting more (and getting more dangerous chances when he does shoot, which is an underrated part of his fantasy potential). His secondary assists (10 in 10 games) have largely come on the PP, so whatever. He’s good, but I think Clarke offers more BS upside and has a similar-ish offensive role. I think Clarke also has the tools to be every bit the offensive weapon that Bouchard is (a top five D in the game), so you know where I’m leaning if forced to choose. The good news is, you can play both rather easily!
Zach Hyman’s price has been creeping downward, so he’s fine… I just prefer leaving Draisaitl + a punt spot open (ideally Roslo at $3100 as the priciest option) and swapping to one of Drai’s wings in warmups between Podkolzin, Kapanen, Roslovic, and Savoie. I would go Savoie first and foremost if I could, he’s looked better as of late, his minutes with Drai are more high-event, and his season-long stats don’t reflect someone with massive upside, yet his pedigree is far greater (and closer in the rear-view mirror) than the other three.
MOODS’ DUDES: Leon Draisaitl ($8500), Evan Bouchard ($6800), Matt Savoie ($2900)
Drouin went “home” (NYC, probably?) but will re-join the team in St. Louis. Does St. Louis change a winning lineup? I would guess not, but we’ll see.
STL1 may just be the best line in the league. Hm. They are up 10-0 in 63 minutes, with an xG count of.. 2.9 to 2.3. So… alright, it might not last forever. That’s fine. I think what this surge of offense has obscured a bit though is that.. this is a St. Louis team that is playing much better defensively. Yes, it helps to get goaltending, but this was the hallmark of last year’s playoff team that got scorching hot under Jim Montgomery. A strong foundation of defense and tight-checking, fleet-footed forwards, heavy defenders, and just enough individual talent (and overpassing) that created offense in all situations. Losing guys like Brayden Schenn and Justin Faulk simply doesn’t change the calculus there, and I think the St. Louis Blues are back.
Back to being… boring. Until the Snuggerud heater comes to an end. It’s worth noting here that Snuggerud is 21 years old and is one of the most decorated NCAA players of the past decade, so this might simply be a signal that Snuggerud will be an elite goal scorer for years to come. His college stats are that good. Not to be outdone, Dylan Holloway also had an insane year at Wisconsin during COVID, and these two in what I have tracked have two of the 30 most impressive college seasons among “college aged” players (I have 1066 players in this set that they rank this highly in!).
Robert Thomas is one of the best playmakers in the game, and Dylan Holloway and Jimmy Snuggerud are in different stages of becoming top-end finishers, but offer well-rounded games and are well on their way. I hope we see a whole lot more than 63 minutes of this line for the reason of the season, so we can get a sense of what the offensive ceiling of this trio really can be.
On defense, the return of Colton Parayko steals the role that made Logan Mailloux so interesting, especially now that it seems Broberg will be locked in to the top PP unit with no Faulk. The prices don’t really suit my eye, and given the players I want to spend up for I’d rather just full punt the spot rather than try to play a Parayko or more expensive Blues D. None of them have all that impressive a long-term profile, and while Mailloux looked good without Parayko, the minutes will shrink and the price rose a decent amount. I think he’s a long-term interesting player, especially if he produces with PP2 time offensively by picking up some assists, considering the lack of premium defensemen on this blue line. Theo Lindstein debuted this week, and is paired with Parayko, having been drafted in the first round in 2023. Unfortunately for us, he has absolutely no track record of offensive production at any level, so he won’t be likely to crack any lineups any time soon.
I think Jordan Kyrou is an interesting leverage play. As mentioned, all three forward lines are playing relatively low event, and with Dvorsky at C I would expect the other two lines to catch McDrai. Kyrou has quietly cooked all season, is fairly expensive for his recent production, and is playing with a center who we are long-term buyers on in the 20-year-old Dalibor Dvorsky. The minutes will always be a struggle, and the line has not done much of anything with Neighbours, but I don’t see a ton of reason to chase the field to STL1 on a 2-game slate, either. If the EDM goalies spring a leak again, you may even want a 5-6 stack of STL, and Kyrou is a great way to catch his line’s production in one roster spot!
MOODS’ DUDES: Jordan Kyrou ($5700), Dylan Holloway ($5500), Jimmy Snuggerud ($4000)
This will be the third week in a row we run this one back. I have fielded a few questions about how to support our work, and we never have a great answer. I’m just going to go ahead and ask for support on various causes I care about in this part of the newsletter, and if you feel obligated it would mean the world to me that we can have a positive impact on others:
It is, and will remain for the next while, a free newsletter. If this sort of charity is not for you or not in the cards currently, that’s totally fine. I just want to give the offramp in case it’s been a thought you’ve had but you're not too sure what to do.
Times are tough right now, pretty much no matter where you live in the world. In light of recent events, prices that we already have observed at historic highs are only going to further increase, and it’s quite difficult to find anyone who gives a shit about “Kitchen Table” issues anymore, to pull a political talking point.
It’s something that’s nice to talk about, but it doesn’t make headlines or get clicks the way that… gestures wildly at the outdoors… those things do. Putting food on the table is tough for lots of hardworking folks. The vast majority of us are lucky to never have to worry about the next meal.
I have personal experience with Philabundance, a food bank in Philadelphia, and will share their link if you wish to donate. Better yet, however, keep in mind your own local neighbors who might be struggling, find a local food shelter, and bring some cans. Lots of sports teams and other events also organize food drives of this sort, so being cognizant of those (instead of just noticing it as you walk in and vaguely feeling bad about yourself… been there before a time or ten) ahead of time is a great way to make a difference. As we come up on summer, the Holiday drive supplies have come to an end while schools will let out soon removing the #1 place where the vast majority of hungry kids get a reliable meal.
If you can find it in yourself to spare some Ramen… we can make the world a better place, one spice packet at a time.
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!
