Friday Nov 7th NHL DFS Slate Breakdown

For a third straight Friday writeup, I am in a good mood, having cashed on Thursday night with a ANA@DAL game-stack that didn’t quite have the nuts (JRob-Hintz-Miro, no Wyatt or Rantanen) but was good enough for a deep cash. Did I lose more than that on stupid boosted bets and the worst football game of the season (and I hate Bo Nix more than Nathan MacKinnon, fraudulent ass quarterback)?

No further questions.

Let’s get into Friday’s slate.

This four-game slate locks at 7:00PM EST with two games at 7PM, another at 9PM, and the last game at 10PM. That gives us three slates, with main, late, and late showdown. Not too shabby.

Reminder that all of the below information is as-of Thursday (or earlier) practices, and we could get updated news during AM skates. I would argue that this slate is pretty straightforward, I don’t expect any changes of significance from what is listed below, but it is always good to stay vigilant. I keep lists of every team in the league, if you want a headstart in checking your stacks and your goalies.

https://x.com/FakeMoods/lists

The rainbow sheet is back, and it is using ten-game trends. It’s a beautiful time to be alive in the hockey streets.

The rainbow sheet functions by lining up each team offensively with their opponent defensively, and calculating performances on a game-by-game basis while adjusting for opponent. These are all five-on-five 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

NY Rangers (-110) @ Detroit (-110) ||| o5.5 -130

The Rangers are a staggering hockey team. Nothing about them makes sense. But they are oh so predictable because they have exactly five top-six quality forwards with Trocheck on the shelf. It is now Alexis Lafreniere’s turn to watch from the sidelines as Will Cuylle takes the PP1 net-front job.

You’ll never believe this, I know, but the Rangers lead the league in PP shot attempts per 60, are 6th in xGs… and dead last in goals scored per 60. It’s really, really bleak over here.

I’ve been saying for a couple weeks now that I can’t keep throwing money down this well, and that Zibanejad in particular looks like he’s lost any sort of finishing touch he has. He looks helpless in situations where he once was one of the more feared finishers in the league. Whether the glorious chance goes over the net and out of play or straight into the goalie’s crest for a whistle, there are few instances where Zibanejad wires a puck to a corner or seems in control of the puck.

Like the rest of the top forwards, however, they are producing expected fantasy points. At some point, this’ll shake and they’ll produce at-expected, and they don’t even have to clear expectation to be fantasy relevant. And their prices are high still!

The Rangers’ top six players (top five forwards + Fox) have a whopping 67.9 xFPPG over the last ten, which excludes the first four games of the year (they were shut out.. twice.. in those games). To show for it, they combine for 46.3 FPPG as a six-man unit. That’s simply unbelievable, especially for a crop of players who are undeniably talented and have a history of outperforming their looks.

Dom summed it up best, but his focus was on Alexis Lafreniere, who of course gets a downgrade by leaving the top PP unit. From his 16 Stats article on The Athletic:

J.T. Miller appears dead-set on shooting for the time being, and he has the cheapest PP1 mate on his line while avoiding Taylor Raddysh (with Panarin-Zibanejad). It’s gross, but I’d like to save nearly $2000 on the line that doesn’t have Raddysh. In a winnable matchup in Detroit, who has allowed a reasonable number of chances of late, I could find reason to play NYR1 on Friday. I think I’m more likely to scoop some Will Cuylle value, as last year he was quite good and now gets his first crack at top unit production in a while, still putting up good underlyings without the added boost.

MOODS’ DUDES: Artemi Panarin ($7700), J.T. Miller ($6300), Will Cuylle ($4400)

Well, just about everyone knows who Emmitt Finnie is now. After starting the year as a camp invitee without much of a fanbase, Finnie made the team, entrenched himself alongside Dylan Larkin, and spent the past couple of weeks manning the PP1 left half-wall. Not bad for a dude drafted as a 7th rounder two and a half years ago.

The gravy train may be ending here, however, as it appears Patrick Kane will return to the Detroit lineup, and with it taking the PP1 job back. Finnie has been fine for fantasy, but $4500 is Will Cuylle money in this matchup, and I much prefer the Rangers side to Detroit. The balance of the PP1 is quite expensive, Lucas Raymond being the cheapest forward and Seider’s $5700 only checking in $100 below Raymond. I am finding it difficult to find Detroit attractive vs. the Rangers, but the odds are truly split down the middle.

Mo Seider is in an interesting spot on this slate, as he’s comfortably the best shots-per-game defender on the slate, with 6.2 attempts per game over the past ten, and his xFPPG mark is near the top of the slate as well despite it being <10. Only Fox, Morrissey, and Faber clear his mark, and none of those guys are even above 11!

Seider is a great one-off play, as he possesses point upside with the PP1 role he has but brings huge blocks/shots equity to the table as his main appeal. Seider has been territorially dominant this year, but especially so paired with Simon Edvinsson, who I think is #VeryGood but is also definitively #NotBenChiarot.

These guys are getting fed D-zone starts, yet have dominated opponents in every metric and are up 5-3 on the scoreboard. It’s not only an on-ice boon, though, it’s a fantasy one too!

While the offense is relatively lacking with Seider, it does get noticeably better with Edvinsson on his pair. Dating back to last season, Seider has about 600 5v5 minutes with Edvinsson and 1000 5v5 minutes with Chiarot. Seider’s shot attempt rate increases by 10%, his SOG/60 jumps 25%, and his 5v5 pts/60 jumps from 0.35 to 1.0 with Edvinsson! That’s a 3x rate in substantial minutes. Seider is certainly in play on this fairly weak fantasy defenseman slate.

Down the lineup, JVR makes sense as a $2500 punt. He’s getting absolutely nothing to show for it, but the PP2 net-front job is at least giving him enough looks that you can get a decent chance at a goal for the minimum.

We haven’t seen much from Marco Kasper this year, but with Kane back we could see some of last year’s strong performance take hold as this line returns to form to join DeBrincat’s strong output to-date.

MOODS’ DUDES: Alex DeBrincat ($6700), Mo Seider ($5700), James van Riemsdyk ($2500)

Minnesota (+114) @ NY Islanders (-135) ||| o6.5 -108

Minnesota has lost another game, dropping to 5-7-3 on the season. Don’t tell that to Brock Faber, who scored his second goal in five games and now has 2 goals, 6 assists, 18 shots, and 15 blocks in his last six.

Kirill Kaprizov is tied for tenth in the NHL in scoring, with 19 points in 15 games, with Matt Boldy (15) and Marcus Johansson (13) not too far behind. The problem in Minnesota, for perhaps the first time ever, is on the other end of the ice. They are allowing way too many goals, and it isn’t really the fault of goaltending. At 5v5, they have allowed the second-most xGA and only the 7th-most GA. The PK has not been great, but it’s also not been terrible, and this team has been consistently elite defensively year-to-year with a largely terrible PK.

They could use their heavy hitters to produce a tad more at 5v5, but this matchup on Long Island isn’t one that I would expect to stifle them, especially after they looked fairly good against Carolina on Thursday.

The Wild are getting key reinforcements in one Mats Zuccarello, who is set to return after missing the start of the season with an apparently undisclosed lower-body injury. Quite conveniently, he will replace Tyler Pitlick in the lineup, who is set to be suspended for a long time for an awful, awful hit on Jalen Chatfield.

Finally, Marco Rossi is playing a boatload of minutes. The production is hit-or-miss, especially without a PP1 job, but taking the plunge with Zucc back could be a nice look. I don’t know that Zuccarello is the cure to the defensive woes of the Wild, but you have to think their defense corps is healthy (and good, probably?) and he’s got surprisingly good defensive fancy stats:

We don’t know that Zucc will be PP1, and we probably won’t ahead of puck drop, but let’s be brave and take the plunge on Kaprizov’s best buddy in a juicy matchup with a fun, exciting Islanders team.

Wild @ Islanders, feel the excitement! 2025-26 is fun!

MOODS’ DUDES: Kirill Kaprizov ($9000), Matt Boldy ($7800), Mats Zuccarello ($4700)

This is my stupid newsletter. I’m going to lead off the Islanders by taking about Cal Ritchie, who has 3.25 xFPPG and 1.37 FPPG in his three games so far this season. Fuck you, that’s why.

Patrick Roy is obsessed with this player. Seriously.

October, on the eve of the season, here heard raving about a player who the organization had just sent to the AHL.

November 3rd: “I asked #Isles HC Patrick Roy what gave him the confidence to make Ritchie the 2C:

"He earned my trust during the preseason."

Said that it was tough to send him to Bridgeport but they thought that was best for his development.

Then the opportunity came.”

November 4th: “Patrick Roy on rookie 2C Cal Ritchie skating with Jonathan Drouin and Kyle Palmieri: "If I was a rookie, I would love to have two mentors like this. I think they just kind of make him better. He's part of our now and our future."

And the kicker, Thursday on a question about Mathew Barzal: “Roy was asked about how much flexibility Barzal gives him, given that he can play center and both wing positions:

"Well, right now the flexibility is that Richie is playing on that second line."“

What is going on here? I thought I was early to the Cal Ritchie fan club.. but Roy is really paying his dues. Ultimately, Horvat-Barzal is of course the main appeal, but Ritchie-Palmieri saves a bit of money if you are trying to game stack this with a Kaprizov/Boldy duo. Ritchie profiles as a play-driver more so than a scorer and a shooter, and the poor production to start his NHL tenure in NYI is concerning, so he’s far from a must play. I just can’t go one day without seeing a mouth-watering Patrick Roy quote about the guy.

Matthew Schaefer is ridiculous, and Roy will let him off the leash when the situation calls for it. I certainly prefer finding Schaefer money in a game-stack than I do playing any member of the Minnesota Wild blue line. He’s running a bit hot, so I wouldn’t consider him at his price unless it was with other PP1 mates, but the talent is undeniable. Emil Heineman is an original Moods Dude, and Anders Lee, uh, leads the slate in xFPPG. I need more than three Dude slots. Alas. I like this game!

MOODS’ DUDES: Bo Horvat ($6900), Matthew Schaefer ($5400), Emil Heineman ($3400)

Chicago (+124) @ Calgary (-148) ||| o5.5 -135

Welcome to Connor Bedard’s world. While Macklin Celebrini is getting the press, Connor Bedard is getting the results, leading his team to being in the playoff mix (they have the WC2 by points percentage as I type this!). A 106 PDO will do that, but Celebrini is doing it with severely worse underlyings and a 110 PDO. Bedard’s game is off-the-charts good right now, and it seems like Burakovsky and Greene are doing enough to support him. Bedard has that Michkov-esque look from the end of last season, where he’s confident enough to jump the play and break out for the home run pass, but is also winning virtually every puck battle when he’s engaged.

I am thoroughly enjoying this experience, much more than the prior two seasons, and can only think it’s because I am dead even with the field on Bedard in Best Puck (8.5%) that he is allowed to be fun and excellent at hockey.

Nonetheless, Chicago heads into Calgary. Calgary! Chicago insists on running 11F 7D every night now, and with that extra TOI they don’t really have any other plan but “give it to Connor”. This has set up for an abundance of fun, as Bedard is 4th in the league in 5v5 TOI/GP over the last ten games, and 5th over the last five. He’s getting shifts up and down the lineup, making full stacking unnecessary. These are my favorite sort of plays to make, because you don’t have to fade a cheap teammate who shares 90% of the ice time (or make room on your roster for it!). Once again, I have zero time for this Calgary squad, and them being a favorite here is all the more reason for me to invest in Bedard.

Admittedly, Dustin Wolf has turned things around in goal, and the team’s goaltending on the year is now back to around league average. The underlyings look quite strong for Calgary, and the vibes are back after their second straight win (the first time they’ve won back to back games this season). I am not fooled. These guys stink.

Other Hawks to keep an eye on: Artyom Levshunov got the PP1 work over Rinzel last game. 11F 7D makes any Chicago defender hard to play (especially Levshunov, who will be sheltered heavily). Tyler Bertuzzi is coming off a hat trick in Vancouver, and has the second best xFP production on the team. Burakovsky and Teravainen rounded out the top PP unit, and they look imperceptibly different from one another. Both are low floor, middling ceiling options at $4k. This new PP1 is cheaper than a Rinzel/Donato iteration, slightly, but is not something I am overly excited about. Capturing Bedard gets me the investment I am looking to make in this game, and I will strongly consider Spencer Knight in goal, should he start for just $7200.

MOODS’ DUDES: Connor Bedard ($7300)

The Zayne Parekh healthy scratch is strange, and it is even stranger that they won 5-1 with Yan Kuznetsov having a legitimately great game. Kuznetsov is 23, is a former 2nd rounder, and had an assist in that win over Columbus. Can you really take him out?

Weegar and Andersson are plenty good enough to patrol the right side of the defense, anyway, so we may be seeing the beginning of Zayne Parekh preparing to go play in World Juniors? And then when Rasmus Andersson is traded to Vegas on January 19th (I swear I predicted this date or something close to it somewhere, but was unable to find it!), Parekh steps in to a full top four role.

In any case, the current formation is a touch wonky. Honzek-Backlund-Coleman is the closest we have to a solidified unit, and Coleman especially has some fantasy chops, but Honzek has been fairly disappointing fantasy-wise in his young career.

Matt Coronato, on a line with Frost-Huberdeau where all three are PP1, has been in the lineup since 10/26, when he was healthy-scratched. In five games since his return he has one goal, two assists, and six total shots, with 14 attempts. That’s not good enough, and with his pedigree I expect the shot volume to uptick, but averaging <15 minutes a night he doesn’t have the sort of explosive ceiling-in-waiting that I am willing to chase night after night. His full line is $12800 and PP1-correlated, so while you can play the full stack, I expect ownership to be heavy here. This team stinks, I wouldn’t bother.

That leaves us with Nazem Kadri, who is slated to play the 1,001st game of his NHL career. Neither of his linemates are doing anything right now, which feels like it has been the case for the previous 1000 games of Nazem Kadri’s career:

Unless prime Sean Couturier is going to walk through that door, I am not playing Joel Farabee, who I have long thought is only in the NHL because he happened to fit well with a player who was severely underappreciated during his prime days in Philly. Connor Zary has been shockingly bad so far this year, despite having a track record of being a fairly good fantasy player.

MacKenzie Weegar has fallen from a peak price of $6400 during the opening week of the season to just $4700 now. With no Parekh, he would be a PP1 lock, though Parekh did take that role from him in recent weeks, so it is worth monitoring. Regardless, Weegar’s main attraction is the shots+blocks he generates, so he is in play for his extreme minutes-workload regardless of PP role, and the PP2 here roughly splits time, making the distinction rather irrelevant unless stacking him with Kadri.

MOODS’ DUDES: Nazem Kadri ($6600), MacKenzie Weegar ($4700)

Winnipeg (-198) @ San Jose (+164) ||| o6.5 +102

It’s always fabulous when a team’s PP1 consists of their five best fantasy players. Just don’t ask the New York Rangers how that translates to on-ice results.

Thankfully for the Winnipeg Jets, they understand the assignment of putting pucks into nets, even if it is not at the same breakneck pace that they scored with last year with the man advantage. The Jets currently are nestled into the top ten in the league in both Goals and Shot Attempts, and are 5th in Expected Goals. I believe that shot attempts are a more appropriate way to measure a PP, because every look should be a good one with the man advantage, and that the eye test + goals are a good way to distinguish which rapidly-generating PPs are actually productive or not. xGs are a bit tough for me to trust when rebounds factor so heavily, and the best PP (think peak Tampa) doesn’t have a need for any rebounds. Rebounds are what you get when you suck and are unable to put the puck past the goalie!

In any case, that’s what the Jets are, to me. A perfectly good PP, and they are driven rather exclusively by their PP1. That’s the good news.

The bad news is that Winnipeg has a monster total on the road in San Jose, and as a result are extremely expensive (even with Iafallo, the full 5-man PP1 costs a shade under $34000!). And if you consult the rainbow sheet, Winnipeg is slated for the worst 5v5 matchup on this slate. San Jose has been legitimately good! They aren’t even getting bailed out by goalies or anything…. they just are performing dull magic acts on the ice.

On the PK, it’s a bit of a different story. These Sharks are bottom 3 in both attempts and xGs against while shorthanded, and comfortably in the bottom 10 of actual goals against. Their defensive struggles appear limited to the PK for the moment, but given their extreme lack of talent I would wager the PK is closer to their true team defense talent than the 5v5 production as-of late.

It seems possible, at least, that William Eklund returns to solidify the top six once again, and he is one of San Jose’s only true positive-impact play-drivers:

He skated yesterday but “will be re-evaluated again on Friday”, which typically means he’s not ready to go. I would think Saturday night against Florida is more realistic, but if Eklund is back I think you can safely dock WPG projections a touch to account for it.

I can’t fathom ruling out WPG1 entirely, but you’ll need to figure out where your salary saved comes from and if two mid-tier stacks can fit together in a way that you simply can’t touch with WPG1’s prices. Josh Morrissey is priced head-and-shoulders above the rest at defense, but I don’t think there’s a ton of separation here. If building a PP1 team, he’s the guy I would leave off in favor of cheaper alternatives.

Adam Lowry’s return to the lineup should at least boost the middle six forwards a bit. Toews-Namestnikov-Iafallo has stuck for a while, but in 44 minutes they are being out-chanced 2.4-1.6, which is covered up by their 3-2 goals lead in this time. I would only use Iafallo in a PP1 stack, and Toews/Namestnikov I worry could get actual ownership given the matchup. I’d rather take a total flier on Adam Lowry + Tanner Pearson, and get the full savings with both players at $2800. Nino Niederreiter has too many viable alternatives at $4300 to play on his own, and I don’t know why you need a $9900 line unless you’re also playing the WPG top line. Pearson has been horrible so far this year, but with Lowry back having a legitimate center should help, and Nino-Lowry-Appleton produced some fantasy goodness last year. Pearson might be able to slot in here and build some chemistry with this duo, and has legitimately good fantasy numbers in his past.

Did you know Mark Scheifele is one point off the league’s points lead and two goals back for the Cutter Gauthier trophy for most goals on the season? Now you do. Kyle Connor and Gabe Vilardi are good too! There, that’s every Jet.

MOODS’ DUDES: Kyle Connor ($8500), Mark Scheifele ($8000), Tanner Pearson ($2800)

San Jose broke out the 11F 7D trick on Wednesday, after Michael Misa suffered an unfortunate injury during morning skate that has put him on IR and presumably on a track to spend his holidays in Minnesota for the World Juniors, if that wasn’t already going to be the case.

My interest against Winnipeg tends to come from middle-six matchups, but with Lowry back in the fold I think these defensive numbers WPG has put up (which are slowly coming around) are fake. It doesn’t really matter, because the Sharks are so inept at chance generation, and are shooting the absolute lights out right now to look semi-competent offensively. But the 2nd line for San Jose has been legitimately fun, so let’s see what they are offering:

Ah, of course, on 5.6 xGs in 88 minutes we have a total of 12 goals, 8-4 for the Sharks. Whether Eklund is in or not impacts how interested I am in the Jets, but I cannot in good conscience express optimism for a San Jose team that I know is terrible, but has been priced up because their entire team has a sky-high on-ice shooting %. Shooting 13.75% as a team is insane, and is only surpassed by the Montreal Canadiens wagon at this point in time. They are in a similar camp to the Chicago Blackhawks, as mentioned before, but are not getting much goaltending to bolster their win chances like the Hawks are. Additionally, Macklin Celebrini is running hotter than the sun right now, but is presenting a horrendous on-ice profile, and you can’t even blame the lack of linemates as he’s been locked in with Smith and Toffoli for the last little while. They’ve just not been any good, outside of their monstrous on-ice Sh%:

As an American, I surely hope that Hockey Canada decides to bring the guy who is scoring on absolutely nothing offensively, and not the guy who is generating oodles of offense while generating some chances:

With a fantasy slant added on, I know which fighter I am choosing. And it won’t be Macklin (but you already knew that).

Despite all of San Jose’s defensemen being cheap, the potential that they run back the same lineup with 7D dressing bodes terribly for all of them, as the 3 BS bonus is necessary to bring any of them into the discussion, and if the TOI gets cut that is less likely than the field will project it. Timothy Liljegren somehow added a PP2 sliver of TOI and still played the least of all D on Wednesday, so I would just plug my nose and hope that that was a function of a non-competitive blowout more than it was a sign of things to come.

Another key distinguishing factor against Celebrini is his market share of the PP1. Versus a guy like Bedard or other elite PP scorers in the league, Celebrini’s 22% of the shot attempts alongside Smith (21%) and Toffoli (32%), is fairly weak. Bedard sits at 36% on the year, and Ovi typically takes ~40% of his teams PP attempts.

Whether Eklund is back or not, I think Wennberg is a plug-your-nose sort of punt, at $3200 he plays so many minutes and has been OK this season. He’ll be the last PP1 forward if Eklund remains out.

MOODS’ DUDES: Tyler Toffoli ($5300)

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!