Friday Oct 24th NHL DFS Slate Breakdown

Another Friday writeup, another night basking in the glow of riding the Seattle Kraken to a profit. I eked out a min cash on Thursday night with the Anaheim stack I touted on the Morning Skate Podcast, a NYI PP1 mini, and Daccord. The Kraken shutting out the Jets 3-0 earned Daccord 37.4 DKPts, including an EN assist, and I needed every last point to cash the $333. I missed the line in several other contests, which is quite embarrassing, but not more embarrassing than me, noted Nathan MacKinnon fader, catching the knife on one mister Nathan MacKinnon’s 11-point DK performance for $9300. Not hitting the bonus when your team has 47 shots on goal is quite the adventure.

But profit is profit, and considering there were several hat tricks on the slate (Logan Cooley, Macklin Celebrini, Taylor Raddysh) and plenty of excellent fantasy performances, getting away with a slight W means I am incredibly fortunate.

Let’s get into Friday’s slate.

This four-game slate locks at 7:00PM EST with three games at 7PM and 8PM in Winnipeg. We really do not like having hockey on from 7:45-8, thankfully there are no other sporting events starting around that time that will capture the attention of every Canadian. Nice work, NHL. At least in this case, they tried with TOR-BUF to have it at 7:30, but since Toronto wanted to move their game tomorrow (…against Buffalo in a home-and-home undercard) to 5PM before game 2 of the World Series, league rules of 22 hours between puck drops necessitate that Friday go off at 7PM. Anyway…

Reminder that all of the below information is as-of Thursday (or earlier) practices, and we could get updated news during AM skates. There are many injury spots or uncertain situations, so while I’ll note all of them, check back tomorrow before you finalize your lineups that everything you take away from my writing is confirmed. I keep lists of every team in the league, if you want a headstart in checking.

https://x.com/FakeMoods/lists

The rainbow sheet is back, and it uses five-game trends for the time being. We are getting enough information to defend the eye test with, but I am not overwriting preseason takes just yet without a healthy dose of the eye test, as 7-8 games (which most teams in the league are currently at) is a small sample in the grand scheme of things.

It 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 for here beyond the small sample sizes.

Playing the San Jose Sharks five times in five games (1-4-2 record, 22-34 for a -12 goal differential) would be treated much differently in the adjustment process than facing off with the New Jersey Devils five times (6-1-0 record, 28-18 for a +10 GD), he says before looking over the sheet for tomorrow…

Like I said.. it’s early.

All stats from naturalstattrick.com unless otherwise noted.

Odds and Totals from DK Sportsbook

San Jose (+275) @ New Jersey (-345) ||| o6.5 +110

Well, Macklin Celebrini took a number and boarded the everloving fuck out of me, the idiot who wrote this just one week ago in this exact space:

He has put up nearly 100 DK Pts in the four games since that statement, after totaling 22 DK Pts in the first three games of the year. Thursday’s masterclass against the New York Rangers, one of the league’s stingiest teams to-date this season, was quite impressive, to say the absolute least. Now Macklin is looking at games of 53.3 || 23.1 || 1.5 || 18.0 in his last four, and is $400 cheaper than when I last wrote him up with the linemates he should have in Will Smith and Tyler Toffoli.

All of these are great signs, and might make SJ1 the obvious play that will be underowned on Friday. However, New Jersey seems to have been slow-playing their fastball this year and only just unleashed it against the unsuspecting Minnesota Wild:

The Nico Hischier - Timo Meier - Dougie Hamilton 5v5 unit was absolute nails last season, and completely dominated the Eriksson-Ek line (with Boldy and Kaprizov) in a hard-match situation before John Hynes was forced to break it apart during Wednesday’s 4-1 loss. We haven’t seen much of this matchup unit at home for New Jersey on the year, where Pesce-Luke Hughes have actually been tasked with those minutes in earlier games for some reason.

Last season, these guys were amazing together, and play a lunchpail style of hockey compared to the go-go Jack Hughes game that Luke Hughes is more suited for:

I suspect Macklin Celebrini is getting a healthy dose of this matchup on Friday night, and I don’t like his odds of beating it. At all.

San Jose generally got dog-walked by the Rangers at evens, and it took some great individual efforts to overcome it. I am monitoring the status of Nick Leddy, as it seems he will be missing time and leaves the door open for Sam Dickinson, who probably steps in to take Liljegren’s PP2 time as well at $2500 on DraftKings. With three shots in each of his last two games and 16 minutes a night, Dickinson as a punt could open up many doors on this slate, with upside for more as far as role in concerned.

Mario Ferraro makes sense as a punt defender with more of a minutes/blocks profile, and while Liljegren is more expensive than PP1 Orlov, he’s seeing true #1 minutes and having Dickinson in the lineup shouldn’t hurt that, even if the PP2 role vanishes.

MOODS’ DUDES: I am not scared of the Great Fade of the +275 underdogs!

Arseni Gritsyuk had a naming convention issue in my feed so far this season that I just discovered in the preparation process for this newsletter. Don’t say I don’t care about you.

He has an even better KHL profile than I may have mentioned from time-to-time, because it was pulling in 2023 data rather than last year’s age-23 2025 data in the KHL! There’s a significant age difference (which my process of benchmarking does account for!), but consider that on the same team as Ivan Demidov he put up five fewer points in 16 fewer games and actually had more shots on goal. These are elite fantasy rates.

With Cody Glass out of the lineup New Jersey was forced to use Dawson Mercer at C, opening up a top-six job for Gritsyuk. While Stefan Noesen was lurking in his first game back, ready to steal that job, Gritsyuk’s goal probably seals that role on Friday unless New Jersey does the unthinkable and trails in this hockey game. At $3700, he doesnt obviously stand out without a PP1 role, but I’m here to tell you he is an absolute baller, and will be in the Dawson Mercer salary range ($5000 on Friday) sooner than later should the role stick. With Cody Glass still “getting imaging” as-of Thursday, I don’t expect him to be available on Friday, and the Dadonov injury has no clear timeline (on LTIR), meaning this job is Gritsyuk’s for the taking.

Jack Hughes and Jesper Bratt will get to go out against the non-Celebrini lines, which means they are in the plum matchup of the group. I don’t know why Hughes is only $8500, but it’ll take a true miracle for him to not post a top-5 score on this slate, the question is 1) does he take anyone along with him and 2) is the 3rd highest score good enough with Matthews, Kyle Connor, Tage, and Werenski also requiring significant investments to roster, among others.

I generally think Bratt is a tad overrated in fantasy circles, but that goes out the window in this sort of a matchup. As much as I’d love to make it a NJ2 Gritsyuk night, $15500 for Hughes-Bratt vs. $13500 for Nico-Timo when Timo is on PP2 makes the full stack less interesting.

Dougie is PP1 for now (..sigh, this damn team and yanking our chains with the PP1), so if you wanted to do an overstack of the Devils, Dougie-Timo-Gritsyuk-Jack Hughes is an interesting way to try and capture a shit ton of points in a way that could still leave you available to roster other studs. Nico Hischier and Jesper Bratt could easily post 12-13 DKPts here, even in a rout, and check in as overpriced when it’s all said and done.

Paul Cotter played 14 minutes after averaging ~10 for the first six games, and scored on the third line with Dawson Mercer. He’s a tertiary benefactor here from the Glass injury and subsequent reshuffle, and a certified Moods Dude in general. He’s not going to get PP time, but don’t forget him if you need a true punt at just $2700!

MOODS’ DUDES: Jack Hughes ($8500), Dougie Hamilton ($6400), Arseni Gritsyuk ($3700)

Toronto (-125) @ Buffalo (+105) ||| o6.5 +110

The status of Morgan Rielly looms large over this one. Toronto has been unbelievably healthy on their blue-line dating back to last season, so we don’t have a great sense at what “replacement-level” looks like in Toronto:

Without both Chris Tanev and Morgan Rielly, we could see some institutional concerns that we haven’t had to worry about for this Leafs side in quite some time. Dakota Mermis is set to draw in for Rielly, and OEL is going to take over the PP1.

The defensive question-marks are in availability, while there are significant questions up front as well after a huge lineup reshuffle. The top line now features Matthews flanked by Bobby McMann and William Nylander, which is the assemblage of Toronto’s three primary shot generators. Meanwhile, the second line features Maccelli-Tavares-Knies, opening the door to one of those players to elevate their shot rate to fill the vacuum left by Nylander or Matthews in their normal top six minutes.

Stylistically, I am betting more on Tavares than Knies to fill this void, but it’s rather interesting that Maccelli over the limited sample of last season (he was a frequent scratch) has the best shot rate. He’s been a non-factor to-date, which I think is more in line with his shot propensity going forward. Tavares at $6200 feels like a great one-off play, or in a mini-stack with Oliver Ekman-Larsson.

I don’t have interest in the bottom six, as Joshua-Roy-Cowan and Lorentz-Domi-Jarnkrok don’t even offer up a PP2 stack in their midst.

Auston Matthews profiles as a top play in the top pace matchup on the slate, no matter how you slice it between xG, Corsi, and Goals, but stacking him at 5v5 is tricky considering I believe Nylander and McMann need the shot volume to be considered strong plays. I would only play Nylander in more built-out PP stacks, considering the efficiency that I think TOR1 needs to get to in order to win the slate on Friday.

MOODS’ DUDES: Auston Matthews ($9000), John Tavares ($6200), Oliver Ekman-Larsson ($3100)

The Buffalo Sabres continue their revenge tour (against DJ specifically) with a home-and-home against the Leafs as they look to recover from a franchise-destroying 0-3-0 start. A regulation win puts the Sabres in 3rd in the Atlantic, by the way. It’s just so early. Stop it, everyone. Stop it.

Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen is back on the Sabres’ roster, and as a result I expect he’ll get the nod on Friday, but between Colten Ellis and Alex Lyon the Sabres have gotten fabulous goaltending in the earlygoing. I would keep an eye on whoever starts, but UPL for $7200 would be an especially nice discount for what is effectively a pick’em moneyline.

Otherwise, with Jason Zucker getting hurt against Detroit on Wednesday, Jiri Kulich stepped into a PP1 role alongside Tage, Dahlin, Doan and Benson. With Doan and Benson comfortably manning the net-front and bumper (though the miniature Benson screening the goalie is very funny to envision), Kulich gets a juicy perimeter role on the PP1 across from Tage. Kulich has a great shot, and has used it with aplomb in both the AHL in his incredible age-19 season two years ago and his NHL rookie year last year. Kulich is truly a stud, and while the loss of Zucker hurts the Sabres in the middle of the lineup, getting a completely correlated BUF1 is a lot of fun. I vastly prefer Kulich in my Tage-Dahlin stacks to Zach Benson.

Benson does not, and will not, profile as a shooter, and while he has pedigree as a #13 pick, he’s of the Mark Stone mold. At his absolute apex form (unlikely to come at age 20), he’ll be a fringe $5-6k player who is going to post some ceiling games and a whole lot of floor games. The early season domination has been fun, but I do not expect Benson to hum along anywhere close to 10 xFPPG the way he has in his four games to-date.

Another Sabres revelation, Josh Doan, also works his way into my consideration set, particularly given his awesome top-six role alongside Tuch and McLeod. With McLeod being another pass-first player with similar defensive chops to Doan, and Tuch being the Sabres most well-established two-way forward, this line seems likely to match up with Matthews-Nylander-McMann. I truly have no idea what to expect here, but the prices on Buffalo are quite appetizing if a shootout is in the cards. Given the results so far, that is absolutely the case, and I think that a Tavares-OEL-Doan type gamestack could be a good way to approach this game in a way that dodges a likely head-to-head matchup at 5v5 while saving money to spend on one of the other three games.

Finally, Jack Quinn needs a new friend with Jason Zucker seemingly out, and I suspect Noah Ostlund will get the call there, either with Peyton Krebs or with Tyson Kozak. Ostlund at $2600 is a very good prospect, but was passed in the pipeline by Kulich. Ostlund would likely need something unexpected to find his way on to a PP2 right away, but he’s worth keeping an eye on, as he technically was drafted ahead of Kulich, and doesn’t have bad AHL stats whatsoever. If he shows up and produces immediately, the Sabres would be wise to keep him around for the long-haul.

All of Dahlin, Byram, and Power project to get PP time at the moment, with Owen Power’s last year making him the prefered value while Bo Byram’s long-term trends have him standing out as the PP2 defender of choice. If forced to choose, I am just opting for Dahlin, who has taken ownership of this blueline for several seasons now and is doing the best things once again, and getting very little to show for it. He ranks second in the NHL among all defensemen in iCF per game, at 7.9, yet has yet to hit a bonus of any kind (shots, blocks, or points) in a game this season. I like his odds to change that this weekend against the Leafs.

All of these are options to stack around Tage Thompson in true Buffalo builds, who ranks second on the entire slate in xFPPG (behind only Matthews) and leads the slate in the delta between his expected and actual fantasy output. The puck is not going in for Tage right now (1G 3A in 7 GP), but it will. He’s too talented and putting too much volume out there (9.3 iCF per game on the year) for it not to break through, and he’s got ample cheap teammates around him to soften the blow of his $8000 price tag.

MOODS’ DUDES: Tage Thompson ($8000), Jiri Kulich ($4300), Josh Doan ($4200)

Washington (-115) @ Columbus (-105) ||| o6.5 +110

To see the Washington lineup mixer the past few games, you’d think they weren’t 5 for 7 in the win column this year, but alas, we have more uncertainty with Pierre-Luc Dubois being questionable for this game. The way they skated in practice has me thinking McMichael-Wilson will stick, as will Ovi-Strome-Beauvillier, leaving either PLD on L2 in place of Lapierre or L3 in place of Justin Sourdif.

Spencer Carbery might deserve the Jack Adams for this interview alone. I did not get much info about where PLD would slot in… but it’s really hard not to listen to him and dream about what this team could look like if the ages on this roster were a bit friendlier, instead of this in-between generations talent pool Washington currently possesses that he is still maximizing.

Rather than try to pick which Washington forward line will do the thing this time, I am inclined to keep riding the Jakob Chychrun rocketship. He is on another level right now, and without Rasmus Sandin is only seeing his TOI (and PP role, where he was PP1 last game with no PLD still) increase. For a bonafide rates monster to be very productive in a growing role and in a matchup with the Columbus Blue Jackets, $5700 is no sweat at all.

More surprising, to me at least, is that John Carlson looks similarly awesome in the early stages of this season:

Carlson has been unlucky to be tied 6-6 at 5v5 on the year, but he ranks high up in the list of the entire league, dominating ~2/3 of shots/chances in his ice time. With that has come ample shot opportunities, which he is taking advantage of in addition to being the PP1 QB. With his defensive role just as secure as any player in the league, too, he’s a true triple threat as far as points, shots, and blocks are concerned from the blue line.

With my concerns about the forwards noted already, I will point out that Strome’s monster game the other day was (unsurprisingly) undeserved based on general expected fantasy points. Those will always underrate Strome, however, as an efficiency god. That Ovi is performing this far below expectation is somewhat concerning (12.95 xFP, 7.5 actual FP), but I expect that to change, as his role really hasn’t changed much and this should be a pretty fun game. Connor McMichael has been similarly snakebitten, but with an inconsistent role and no guarantee that he correlates with either Chychrun or Carlson on the PP (since both may be PP1), I’d rather look elsewhere for my redemption arc narratives, especially if Lapierre is their third forward on the line with him and Tom Wilson.

Protas has been great, but PLD returning could hurt Protas PP time and defensive usage, and he’s already been moved to a Sourdif Leonard line, which isn’t insulting (Leonard is awesome and the Caps love Sourdif) but is pretty limiting from a DFS standpoint at $5600, considering the minutes that get funneled into their fourth line too.

Wrapping up the defensive discission, Declan Chisholm should pick up PP2 time if PLD misses, with Chychrun manning the PP1 at last check. There’s not much here, but especially in an Ovi lineup, the PP2 + Ovi sometimes hits when he plays the full shift, and it’d sure be nice to have a cheap 5 points if Chisholm happens to lay one in Ovi’s wheelhouse. No Sandin is why Chisholm is in the lineup, and the Caps don’t tend to overburden their top four defenders, even with Sandin in.

MOODS’ DUDES: Alex Ovechkin ($7100), Jakob Chychrun ($5700), John Carlson ($5400)

Is Yegor Chinakhov #back? A season-high 10:16 might not indicate as such, but there’s a lot of positive chatter and Dean Evason loves to bench guys randomly. $3100 is as cheap as I’ve ever seen him, and the long-term stats are incredibly friendly to Chinakhov. You can’t realistically plot a path here, but sometimes DFS is more of an art than I science, or so I hear.

The CBJ top line is top PP correlated, which is always news we are looking for, and is made even better by a stunningly low $15600 total for all three of Marchenko, Monahan, and Voronkov. Even with Zach Werenski at $7900, the four-man stack is right in the mix with Buffalo as far as fully correlated home-team PP1 stacks in the $23.5k range are concerned on this slate. CBJ1 is back on their bullshit, and while they aren’t dominating the shot counter to the extent they were last year, to this point the three-man unit as it stands is up 5-0 at 5v5. Not too shabby!

I think the Caps are awesome, unfortunately, and I don’t think I can suspend that prior with these other three games on the slate for long enough to truly build a CBJ stack of any kind. I am prepared to lose to CBJ pieces, which start with CBJ1 and even could feasibly work their way down to an Ivan Provorov or Damon Severson type, who have been reasonably productive with PP2 jobs to fall back on on a team that doesn’t really use its third pair of defenders, but I love the depth in Washington, with or without PLD, and I think that there are no exploitable weaknesses on a slate with significant injury questions and the Calgary Flames on it to exploit instead.

MOODS’ DUDES: Kirill Marchenko ($6000), Yegor Chinakhov ($3100)

Calgary (+136) @ Winnipeg (-162) ||| o5.5 -125

A 5.5 total can’t stop this train. The fading Calgary strategy is gonna be tested majorly on Friday night, with the total being the main thing working against it. While Winnipeg is coming off a 3-0 loss to Seattle, two were empty-netters and the team was generally pleased with their effort. The underlyings don’t necessarily show domination, but I’m not expecting Winnipeg to panic.

Meanwhile, Calgary practiced on Thursday without Nazem Kadri, and didn’t leave an obvious placeholder in his stead. Huberdeau skated with Frost and Coronato, and Joel Farabee with Zary and Sharangovich. Sharangovich was last game’s scratch, so I am tentatively assuming Kadri would play with Zary-Farabee should he be available on Friday.

One of the most unique things about this season to date is just how good the Flames have been defensively, rating above average in all respects at 5v5. That is a little strange, considering they’ve lost all five and have been outscored 17-5 in that span… but you start picking away and six of those GA were on the PK, two more were empty netters, and the final one was in 3v3 overtime, meaning over half of those goals weren’t even at 5v5. Less than 2 5v5 GA/game is likely going to cut it over the season in the NHL, the problem is that these guys can’t score. They can generate volume, yes they can, tied for 3rd in the league in 5v5 shot attempts, but they are down in 15th in expected goals at 5v5 and dead last (tied with Minnesota) with just 9 5v5 goals in their 8 games. With a PP that is similarly dogshit (12.5%, 28th), it’s fair to wonder what is going on here with their underlyings. Significantly above average attempt rate and below average xG creation rate, and a dastardly GFAA mark in the sheet? That’s a telltale sign of an overmatched team that is executing.

To coach Huska’s credit, he hasn’t benched or scratched Zayne Parekh yet to account for the constant losing, and Parekh is getting absolutely nothing to go for him (same as the rest of the team) despite decent fantasy point potential. It’s not great, and a matchup with Winnipeg is fairly miserable, but against Eric Comrie it’s possible that the warts Winnipeg has shown to-date actually turn into goals against.

I have no interest here, but the WPG back-to-back plus depth concerns at least make me understand it if you want to pick at this Calgary side for values.

MOODS’ DUDES: Today’s the day this bet hits! The Greatest Bet In Morning Skate Podcast History!

The chatter post-game from the Jets locker room on Thursday largely focused on the fact that WPG played a sound defensive game against the Kraken.. which I guess is sort of like me going to McDonald’s and taking credit for the saltiness of the fries. That is just how it goes… there is only so much Seattle can do that will hurt you.

With Eric Comrie in net, there is now slightly more that Calgary can do to hurt the Jets, but I expect more of the same in a tight-checking, low-scoring battle much like what we saw on Monday when Winnipeg walked away with a 2-1 victory in the Saddledome.

Connor-Scheifele-Vilardi is $20900 on their own, and $27000 even when you mix in Morrissey, making it very very expensive on a slate where the rest of the teams are 1) cheaper and 2) in 6.5 total games that profile to be fun. I don’t really see how this makes sense on a back-to-back, and will be interested to see if the field completely ignores this game as well or if WPG1 being the top line stack projections-wise gets them some ownership at the high-end of things considering the plethora of value spots (but not value stacks) on the slate.

Nino-Toews-Nyquist is defensible, but it’s not like this is a true second-line, as Nino gets 14-15 minutes every night no matter where he slots in. Brad Lambert is fun, but hasn’t done much in very limited action on the third line, and everything runs through the top line offensively, particularly with Dylan Samberg out of the lineup.

MOODS’ DUDES: Kyle Connor ($7800), Mark Scheifele ($7600), Gabriel Vilardi ($5500)

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. 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!