Oct. 11th Friday NHL Daily Fantasy Overview - 2024-25 NHL Opening Week

Thank you to everyone who checked out Wednesday’s write-up - I hope you stuck around for Thursday’s podcast, and maybe even followed my co-host @dj_mitchell94 on X, who posted a couple of slips/bets that netted him over $1500 on the night. Run hot, kid.

As for your humble narrator… well, I am far too proud to tail DJ. And I am poorer for the privilege. Instead, I went 0/8 on my bets that were pairs of correlated skater point overs or unders. Some people just know ball. DFS was somehow… worse than that?

So it goes. We move forward into Friday, where despite just four games, we have still-juiced prize pools (if you stick around long enough, you’ll get excited when a Friday draws out prize pools half this size. please stay, we are begging you) and a fun slate with three mega favorites and some clear values.

Let’s dive in. Check out the Toronto-Montreal writeup from Wednesday for a brief tutorial on the columns in my Excel sheet, posted for each team.

Odds and Totals from DK Sportsbook

Tampa (+110) @ Carolina (-130) ||| o6 -120

Tampa’s top line is going to draw obvious attention, with reigning Art Ross Trophy winner Nikita Kucherov leading his team into a season debut against another team yet to play in Carolina. After an offseason that didn’t go how I mapped out for them, Tampa enters 2024-25 with a similar top of their roster, swapping Stamkos for Guentzel and Sergachev for Ryan McDonagh. From a DFS standpoint, $24000 for the top line is fair, Kucherov comes in as the most expensive player on the slate, but we’ve seen MacKinnon, McDavid, Matthews, and Pasta all in the mid-to-high 9s. Against Jordan Staal, this slate could offer up a contrarian Nikita Kucherov, who cares not about matchup. (Since I looked it up, since 2019 Kucherov & Point have played just 9 games together against Staal, out of 20 chances (due to injuries), and when paired they are winning 5-1 in 32 minutes. A 9.3 GF/60 will work just fine, if you ask me)

There’s not much outside of that top line, as L2 is all PP2 correlated but Hagel does not get the anticipated PP1 boost, based on the latest PP configuration we’re seeing. Cirelli and Paul are DFS dead-zones, and Carolina is not a matchup to speculate on depth explosions from shallow teams.

On D, Darren Raddysh could be a sneaky DFS option, or he could be donkey chalk a la Brandt Clarke and Jared Spurgeon on Thursday. Who is to say? He’s currently filling the Stamkos role on the PP, as (by far, from the sounds of things) the hardest right-shot on the team. While Stamkos will go down as among the best to ever do it, Raddysh is likely to get a few opportunities to fire at $3100. He is also a perfectly decent accumulator of shots, points, and blocks in the run of play, so there’s no real reason other than ownership to steer clear. Hedman might also be a tad underpriced at $5900, given we don’t know how the Tampa PP will really look and Hedman can fill all four DFS categories (G, A, SOG, BS), but I wouldn’t prioritize him in stacks.

MOODS’ DUDES: Nikita Kucherov ($9000), Darren Raddysh ($3100)

With Staal and friends projected to handle all of the Kucherov they can muster, that leaves the other three lines to feast on some weak Tampa depth. The third line may slow the pace for Tampa more than we’d like, however, and we’re just a year or two removed from seriously discussing Anthony Cirelli in the Selke discussion. Injuries happen, and a concrete role alongside Brandon Hagel could do his stats wonders. All of this to say, I don’t think Tampa is an imminently exploitable matchup, particularly with Vasy in the fold, and I find it strange that the o6 fetches practically identical odds on all four games on the slate. I have a suspicion $4300 Martin Necas and $5800 Andrei Svechnikov (who is sneakily reaching Nik Ehlers status of “he just may never do the thing”) will draw a bunch of ownership, but I’d rather them be lined up with Jack Drury than Jesperi Kotkaniemi, in all honesty. That’s not a sentence you want to read about a chalky combo, regardless of circumstances.

I ride with Sebastian Aho, who has reliably scored goals (and reliably finished chances, far from a guarantee in Carolina) for a number of years now, finishing at 35+ goals in each of the past three, a feat only six others have accomplished. $7200 with coverage from the second line feels pretty good, and I’m perfectly fine with a stack, a mini-stack, or a one-off on Aho. It’s quite possible that Jordan Staal falls off sooner than we think, and if he’s no longer the shutdown guy this year, it’ll be Aho and Jarvis against Kucherov. In that situation, Aho would be a certified jam play, as Kucherov cares not what you do against him offensively as long as he gets his.

I don’t love Shayne Gostisbehere, but I could be wrong on his TOI projection being merely 3rd pair minutes (Sean Walker, his partner, is a good player) and he’s priced at just $2700. He’s not necessary at what is presumably heavy ownership, but in this system and at this price, you’d be a fool not to consider Shayne Gostisbehere as the PP1 defender.

All in all, this game feels like the worst of the bunch, so I’m interested to see if the field agrees. If at 6:55 EST we get Kucherov starting against Aho line, I might be inclined to swap into some CAR1, however.

MOODS’ DUDES: Sebastian Aho ($7200), Martin Necas ($4300)

Chicago (+200) @ Winnipeg (-245) ||| o6 -102

The fightin’ Connor Bedards roll into Winnipeg to face a Jets squad that just beat the reigning-West Champion Oilers 6-0. Uh oh. Nick Foligno replaces Ilya Mikheyev on Bedard’s wing, bringing with him a PP1 job (replacing Taylor Hall). Uh oh. With four shot attempts to Bedard’s 8, Teuvo Teravainen ($4100) could be a nice Robin to Bedard’s Batman. He’s the clear priority stacking option here.

While I wasn’t surprised by it, I was disappointed that a 3% owned Alec Martinez on the 3-gamer Tuesday didn’t get the bounce to push him into must-have territory. Glued to Bedard’s hip at 5v5, the Seth Jones and Alec Martinez pairing might be better stacking options than Teuvo, as while Bedard projects to do it all himself at his peak, leaving Teuvo to scrounge for assists and fluke goals/peripherals, Jones and Martinez eat pucks, chuck pucks from the blue line, and will play 25+ minutes a night on average. I lightly prefer Martinez for a $800 discount, and at <5% owned have no problem chasing points on a guy who had six shot attempts and 3 blocked shots in 25 minutes on Tuesday night. With double digits the meaty range of his bell-curve, on nights Bedard goes for 40 I like Martinez’ chances to hit 18-20, with those assists/fluke goals adding to an already stellar SOG + BS floor. We stan our unicorn boy wonder and our blocks king, regardless of matchup.

MOODS’ DUDES: Connor Bedard ($7800), Alec Martinez ($5200), Teuvo Teravainen ($4100)

Fresh off a 6-0 drubbing of Edmonton, the matchup gets a whole lot easier on Friday. The pricing remains as startlingly cheap now as it was then, and considering the matchup is significantly better, the slate has half as many games, and there are none of McDavid, MacKinnon, or Matthews to lead us into stars and scrubs, I congratulate you on finding your chalk of the night. Don’t overthink it, Connor-Scheifele-Vilardi are a great stack, and Morrissey on the back-end fits with any build.

MOODS’ DUDES: Kyle Connor ($6600), Mark Scheifele ($5600), Gabriel Vilardi ($4900)

Philadelphia (+150) @ Vancouver (-180) ||| o6 -115

The Flyers look to open the season with Matvei Michkov on a line with Sean Couturier and Travis Konecny, as opposed to Frost-Tippett as we spent the offseason assuming.

Michkov, $3000 on tonight’s slate, comes in significantly cheaper than he should be, despite the difficult matchup with a Vancouver team eager to put their late collapse against Calgary in the rear-view. Those who followed along in Best Puck season won’t hear anything new, but Michkov is the best player outside the NHL to debut this season. His KHL numbers as a teenager, playing professionally for a bad Sochi side against KHL foes who only had to gameplan for him, are simply preposterous even before adjusting for his age. I don’t have anyone, in any league at any age, in my ~7 years of data tracking across most relevant world-wide hockey leagues, who bests his age cohort more emphatically than Michkov does. It’s similar to Bedard, but Bedard entered the league a full year and a half younger than Michkov, without the benefit of any professional ice time.

From a fantasy perspective, Matvei is going to shoot a lot if his profile is to tell us anything, but most important is that he brings about an element of talent to a team that has literally everything else in place. Had there not been an ongoing war in Ukraine, or had Michkov’s North American-arrival been well-publicized in advance, rather than seemingly quickly negotiated on a sleepy April afternoon, I believe there would have been a McDavid-like fascination with every Michkov highlight reel goal or pass.

This Flyers team lacked the offensive touch and creativity to convert their chances into goals last year. They did not make a surprise run to the playoff bubble because of hot goaltending and streaky shooting, they did so despite league-bottom goaltending and offensive finishing. Plug an offensive dynamo into the mix, and the ceiling is limitless for the player entering a system that produced the 15th most expected goals at 5v5 (despite finishing 25th in 5v5 goals) and converted only 32 of their 51.3 PP xGs into goals under John Tortorella.

Ah, yes, Torts. Everyone who has an anti-Michkov stance tends to mention him in their argument, given his reputation. I challenge you to deep dive every quote we’ve gotten from Torts over the offseason, from the front office, and the tenor of the beat reporters. This isn’t an average rookie. This is a player who very likely is the key to unlocking Tortorella’s system, which last year was proven successful as a concept. Torts knows his job is to bring out the best in Matvei, not to box him in to playing grind-it-out hockey. I’m calling it wheels up from day one for the latest member of a loaded Calder class, I mean look at this shit. Preposterous. The argument can’t be that Michkov is set up to fail because of the lack of talent on the squad, he is the talent.

Alongside Michkov, the entire PP1 is in play, with Konecny sharing 5v5 ice time, Jamie Drysdale returning to put his stamp on a Flyers team that desperately needs some offensive talent on the back-end as well, and Frost-Tippett showing an unbelievable amount of chemistry to close last season, where Frost’s game (and numbers) turned a corner at the halfway-mark under the firm guidance of his favorite coach. Owen Tippett and Konecny are especially appealing, checking in at a combined $13000 despite being fantasy darlings all of last season when the team could not score.

Shout out to Jett Luchanko for making the team as a 18-year old 1st rounder, making the 3rd line of Farabee-Luchanko-Brink PP2 correlated. I probably lean one-off Brink, however, as Luchanko’s statistical profile looks very light on shots, the fundamental building block of DFS. Besides, Torts is just gonna bench him anyways, I hear….

MOODS’ DUDES: Matvei Michkov ($3000), Owen Tippett ($6600), Jamie Drysdale ($3800) 

Not that anyone’s counting, but Thursday night makes it three straight nights where I’ve lost a non-negligible amount of US Dollars because a goalie with a multi-goal lead couldn’t simply ride out the remainder of the game to the win. After suffering a grotesque Grubauer performance Tuesday and a Blackwood blow-up on Thursday, Vancouver fortunately looks to not be giving me a chance to go back to the Silovs well from Wednesday, as Vancouver blew a 4-1 lead and lost the game in OT and seems to be starting Lankinen on Friday.

Daniel Sprong gets a marginal price bump to $3200, though we saw him benched for a stretch of Wednesday’s game on his way to just 13 minutes. The Sprong Special, if you will, as he still scored a goal on the PP2. Pettersson-DeBrusk serve as his 5v5 linemates with PP1 opportunity, and a combined $11500 for the duo makes a lot of sense. I don’t foresee myself going anywhere else on this side, though Miller could see Couturier with Michkov, which could be a double-dip of a fading Couts and a green Michkov on the defensive side of things. Pius Suter is back, and bumps Nils Hoglander down to a L4 role and the PP2 a question-mark outside of Sprong, Garland, and Hronek.

I am likely higher on the Flyers than the field, and can’t find my way to the more expensive Canucks with how efficiency-dependent I think Vancouver will have to be in this spot.

MOODS’ DUDES: Elias Pettersson ($7100), Jake DeBrusk ($4400), Daniel Sprong ($3200)

St. Louis (+160) @ Vegas (-192) ||| o6 -105

Fresh off a 3-goal 3rd period comeback from a dismal start in San Jose, St. Louis heads into Vegas for a back-to-back. We saw mostly the same lines as pre-game offered, though down a field goal we got some 5v5 Thomas-Kyrou-Buchnevich that could freeze the Bolducs and Holloways of the value world out of consideration. Jordan Kyrou is a priority spend if playing St. Louis, but I would need to have Karlsson confirmed out for Vegas to even consider St. Louis here.

Justin Faulk checks in at $5100 as his price slowly creeps up to start the year. He is fine as a one-off or in a PP1 stack, though the gap between him and Shea Theodore, to name one, probably rules him out for me. Philip Broberg has been impressive, with 9 shot attempts and a smattering of PP time to reach an average of 19 minutes across 2 games for just $2900.

MOODS’ DUDES: Jordan Kyrou ($7000), Justin Faulk ($5100)

The Goalofsson Factor decided Wednesday’s slate, thoroughly punishing anyone paying attention to news when Victor was moved from a L1 role alongside Jack Eichel to Nic Roy on L3. Crucially, the PP1 job held up, and by scoring a PPG on Wednesday, it’s nearly impossible to project anyone but Olofsson to be manning the right flank on Friday. He is a gifted shooter, though doesn’t shoot as much as you might like, and at $3500 I much prefer Michkov and hope that Olofsson can shield some of that Michkov chalk.

I’m not sick enough to chase Alex Holtz for a second night, though would just like to note that Alex Holtz played the fifth-most minutes of any Vegas F in a game where they led from start to finish. A true second-line role would serve Hertl-Holtz greatly, though unfortunately even with Karlsson on the shelf, Dorofeyev couldn’t slot into the PP2 on Weds, with the two non-Holtz F slots going to Barbashev and Roy alongside Hanifin-Pietrangelo.

Shea Theodore is the PP1 guy and fell $100 in price after a three-assist night but was used primarily with Hertl at 5v5 (oh no, I’m definitely chasing Hertl-Holtz for a second night, aren’t I?…) while Hanifin-Hague played a metric-ton with Jack Eichel in a best-on-best role vs. MacKinnon. As far as directly stacking Jack, it kinda stinks, as Mark Stone offers little floor but much upside and Barbashev a decent floor but not much upside without a PP1 job, he says before checking out how Barbashev’s Opening Night went…

MOODS’ DUDES: Jack Eichel ($8200), Tomas Hertl ($5300), Shea Theodore ($5500)

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