The Abominable Snowflake

Most of you know the drill, so let’s get right into things. Each month (or so), DraftKings posts an NHL GPP that is far larger than the days around it, typically on Tuesdays in concert with the largest slates of games. Each month, I faithfully review my play in the contest and discuss takeaways and lament not winning what is as close to life-changing money as it gets in the NHL streets.

For previous versions of this review, see my posts from November and October and subscribe to the newsletter so you don’t miss out on future posts!

As part of all of these “flagship” slates, I have a podcast that I would suggest you subscribe to if you had the curiosity to click on this link, as it will be right up your alley. If you haven’t listened to Tuesday’s pod and are reading this, I’m likely going to make casual references to the thoughts I shared within the podcast, so it may even be worth your time to listen to this one after it’s no longer relevant to the slate, if only to connect what I’m saying there with how I’m explaining my decisions closer to DFS lock. I spend about an hour going game-by-game through the slate, talking about all the little bits and pieces of news we have the day before a game, and mentioning what to keep an eye on the following day. In addition to news, we’ll of course cover where I’m looking to stack teams, where to find values, etc. as a full strategy show.

On Tuesday, I had four lineups in the $888, returning just over $2k on a total entry amount in the $3.5k range. The night was especially frustrating from a results standpoint, as we’ll talk about what the field did and how I felt well positioned against the opposition.

Today’s Primary Point: Breaking Down My Approach to the Slate

To start, a quick summary of the major news we knew and were looking for as lock approached on Tuesday (some of this was discussed on our podcast, other news became relevant on Tuesday):

• Kyle Connor OUT 6-8 weeks, Vilardi-Scheifele-Ehlers as the WPG top line and top PP, the wings at very reasonable salaries.

• Tampa injuries/illnesses, as day progressed it was a reasonable assumption to project Hedman OUT and Stamkos IN, though we had no firm word until 9:30 EST on news or lines.

• Eklund/Duclair IN, negating the $2.5k Kevin Labanc top line top PP role we saw over the weekend and thus reinforcing…

• Valtterri Puustinen L2 PP1 for PIT at $2.7k as a top value option as a true mystery box to the field (if you aren’t in the Discord, I assessed him using statistical comps as perfectly fine, maybe a slightly worse Emil Bemstrom or slightly more-shooty Juuso Parssinen) against a B2B ARI team coming off a rough loss to the Sabres.

• Lastly, Seth Jones was ruled out for CHI, only furthering the huge team total for EDM (4.5, I believe, whereas everyone else was below 4.0).

I had four teams built at lock, but one of them was completely locked, one was half-baked, and the other two had one piece going. I knew with Tampa in particular being a question mark that I wanted some flexibility. So let’s go in order through the teams and how they progressed, but keep in mind that I am also thinking of these teams collectively in my set and not just as singular entities.

Team 1 was my main build, as I had a #take informed by the underlying numbers that NYR-TOR was the game to target. They are EVERYWHERE on the Sheet, and graded out as the top game environment. The field was somewhat set on NYR as secondary options (which bore out in NYR2 being 5-9% owned), but TOR was not showing up anywhere despite being Toronto. When we got Knies scratched, I thought there was a chance Gregor would ascend to L1 PP2, which for a guy who already shoots a good amount (16.8 iCF/60 last three seasons, 41st in NHL and nestled between Kyrou and Kempe) and kills penalties results in a massive role.

What a lineup looks like from there is a little bit of a scramble, but that was intentional because I wanted to capture Matthews but also use this as a place to get significant value as well.

Looking at the The Sheet from above, you can see that not only were TOR/NYR L10 games mirror images of one another (strong offensive performance, weak defensive performance, based on xG adjusted for opponent), but the players I played littered the expected fantasy point player lists on right as well. Matthews nosed out Kucherov for top dog on the slate, Tavares was a shade behind Nylander (at $1.7k less), and a not-shown Rielly was within shouting distance of the top of the D leaderboard (Roman Josi, you can see, was at 10.6 xFP/G, Rielly was in a group of 6-7 D above 9.0). Trocheck has been incredible, so much so that he shows up in the right-side list as well in xFP/$, and then Gregor (without the role boost I mention above) and Bertuzzi also make the values list. I had room for another piece in this game if I wanted it (Lafreniere, Fox, maybe Marner if I really stretched salary by going Bert down to Puustinen), but was pretty comfortable with how this build looked.

If this game was going to hit, I was going to have a chance with this lineup. TOR scored 7 and I’d argue I got unlucky that Marner(?) scored twice(???) while Bertuzzi did nothing and Tavares had 1A 4SOG. Gregor putting up a semi-dud (though 5 DKPts plays when the 25% owned Puustinen gets 6.5) was not that surprising, but a Matthews 4-point night bringing none of my guys with him (Rielly 1 assist, 5 blocks to get him to a good score) was certainly disappointing. David Kampf getting the ENG after cracks from both TOR1 and TOR2 was an especially rude runout. Not to mention, Trocheck missed a wide-open tap-in, so his 6SOG 2BS night could have been a smash one-off as well.

Filling that lineup in was ~$8k in salary for skaters, which I opted to get a one-off Maccelli (he has been awesome over the last stretch of games, and was still $1k cheaper than his linemates despite being The Guy on his line) with just enough to slide in Korpi in a good Goalie matchup with his friend Jake Sanderson, who continues to play 24 minutes with a solid profile and PP1 with no Chabot. Korpi started strong, then CAR flatlined (but started scoring, go figure) to result in me almost getting #Goalied out of the min cash line.

I 5-stacked the team with 7 goals, got the 2nd highest scoring player on the slate (AM34 was only passed by the EN Boeser hat trick.. by 2 DKPts), a near-double bonus and a goal from my other forward slots, and won a 13-man contest for a FHWC Q ticket.. and I got this cool screenshot! easy game.

Oh, and I had to get late stat-corrected just to make the min cash line in the $888. Go figure. But I’ll take it.

Since I felt reasonably confident in Team 1, and how it captured just about everything I wanted out of NYR/TOR, I felt like I could explore other game environments with the rest of my lineup set.

Team 2 was set up as a Kucherov-Stamkos-Hagel-Sergachev stack, with Korpi locked in early in net. To fit this (plus another D, I don’t think it was Pietrangelo but wasn’t a punt), I used a NSH3 mini of Glass-Sissons. Sissons finally turned his theoretical fantasy points into a 2-goal game over the weekend, and then he’s getting Cody Glass at 2.6k on his line, who I have always liked. My only concern with Sissons (other than Matchup with a tough Philly squad, which was why I was not on Forsberg) was the PP1 flip to Glass (who started the year in this role). Taking both of them virtually guaranteed me a piece of the PP1 and I liked both players just fine for their extremely low price tags.

When Korpisalo flopped and NSH was on their way to no output, I used what was left to play a VGK PP stack and moved TB elsewhere, leaving Sergachev in. Had we gotten firm Chandler Stephenson PP1 news (he.. split time there? for a second straight game, so I have no idea.) I probably would have prioritized this more pre-lock. It probably would have meant Stone out, Chandler in, different C-W combo than NSH, so my results would have been disappointing regardless.

Final note: Pietrangelo is never bonusing again. He simply can’t do it. Once Theodore went out, he stopped doing the good fantasy things. I don’t understand.

Team 3 started out hot, as PIT PP struck immediately (for the first time in over a month!) with Guentzel scoring from Sid and Puustinen. Locking in these 3, plus Erik Karlsson, was of course a relatively owned set of players. ResultsDB is yet to be updated, but I figured I wouldn’t have any shared opponents with Maccelli, who as I mentioned before has had an amazing profile as of late. He was incredible last year, as well, but solely as a playmaker. He’s sprouted into a offensive weapon this season thanks to his increased shot rate, and I felt that could be taken advantage of in a game that tilted toward offense. He wound up scoring a PPG, so this all kind of worked out. Guentzel had a huge night while Sid and EK65 disappointed.

The remaining pieces on this team were Scheifele/Vilardi and Montour/Bob at lock. I largely was uninterested in WPG stacking, as Kyle Connor is #ReallyFuckingGood and losing him is not just a plug and play with other idiots. Also, I said it when they were 0-8-1 or whatever and got clowned hard, but the Sharks are not that bad. So, while I “had” those guys in, I was admittedly looking for any excuse to cut bait.

The 9:35 EST line rushes offered that opportunity, as Ryan Donato was reunited with Connor Bedard in line rushes. It was pretty gross, but Donato was $3K, their PP has been awful to leave the door open to Donato going back there (though maybe I should have considered that despite starting the year on PP1, he didn’t have a single PP point to incentivize the staff to deploy him there), and Bedard and Donato are #1 and #2 on the Hawks in ixG. Yes, seriously, that’s a true statement.

I love Gabriel Vilardi, but 32% Vilardi without the early nuts screamed to me as an opportunity to deviate and try to hit the hat trick to work my way back toward the top 10 where the money is. We certainly know Bedard has the talent, and I wasn’t that worried about losing a ton of min-cash equity with Guentzel’s strong game and all the PMR. I filled out this lineup by going down from Montour to Sergachev as Hedman was confirmed out and filled in G with Thompson, who fit.

This team finished less than a point outside the money, which when it’s $1.5k in real money is a tough blow, but ultimately I don’t think giving up and settling for a min cash after Guentzel’s 30 was the right play for me, and clearly Scheif/Vilardi got outscored by Bedard/Donato anyway results-wise.

Finally, Team 4 was my worst team on the night, and did not come all that close to cashing. At lock, I wanted max flexibility and opted to use Puustinen as a one-off with Kucherov and a WPG PP1 stack (the four without Ehlers). As I said above, I was never super committed to WPG, so with the CHI news I found a good-looking lineup with TB1/CHI1 with their correlated PP1 defensemen. Bob in net fit, so I ran with it.

I’m reasonably happy with the flexibility I left myself, as I was worried about Puustinen one-offs being very common (and I didn’t really see a world where one of Guentz/Malkin/Sid/EK65 didn’t hit if Puustinen was going to put up 15-20) but having the extra information at 9:30 allowed me to build a well-correlated (about as perfect as you can make it) 4-3 stack around Puustinen in spots I liked without any duplication concerns.

Results: As I said, I lost a little less than half of what I had invested. $3.5k in, $2k out. I’ll use this section to discuss EDM1, as I’ve discussed the other two spots that eclipsed ~15-20% owned in WPG and PIT. Ownership/Projections didn’t agree, but I felt that the same salary used on Matthews/Tavares and Kucherov/Point (plus a cheaper Sid/Guentzel elsewhere too) across my lineups felt like a reasonable bet to make.

McDavid simply hasn’t been putting up massive shot games, so it really would have taken a 4-5 point night to put the slate away, whereas I knew Kucherov/Matthews were less likely to hit the three points than McDavid, but also were more likely to hit the upper end 7-8+ shot outcomes that help propel them to the top of the pile. To this end:

• The last time McDavid shot-bonused was a month ago today, and on the year in 24 games has 3 games with 10+ shot attempts.

• The last time Kucherov had 5+ shots was 12/4 and in 29 games has 3 with 10+ shot attempts.

• Matthews had 5+ shots against the Islanders on Monday and has 3 of 26 games on the year with 10+ shot attempts.

• wait, that’s not right, that’s only at 5v5 for the last two. Yes, these two guys are basically Connor McDavid in all situations.. when they are playing 5v5 hockey. Ridiculous.

• On the year, headed into last night Kucherov had 5+ shots in 7 of his last 8 and 10+ shot attempts in over HALF OF HIS 29 GAMES. Kucherov has been beyond otherworldly, and as hot as McDavid has been over the last stretch.. that’s Kucherov’s normal.

• Matthews is close at 10 of 26 games at 10+ shot attempts and of course was coming off of a 5-shot, 16-shot attempt game in Long Island, but also had the advantage of being supremely low-owned in what I thought was a powder-keg matchup.

All of this to say, I was not playing McDavid at a similar price. I understand why people did, but I’ll always value shot volume and goalscoring over point production and implied team totals. Especially without Zach Hyman profiling as an especially good value north of $7k.

What Won: Deep breath. The $888 was won by nevertiger8, with a truly insane lineup.

Lindholm/Sharangovich with Eichel/Stone is… interesting, and at least has the gamestack component I am a particular fan of on larger slates. As I always say, powerplays are a cheat code to upside, and the best predictor of getting a PP is taking a penalty. It’s shown that refs repeatedly call a penalty much sooner than you’d otherwise expect if they just gave you a PP opportunity. Sometimes this shows itself as it did in ARI/PIT, with 7 first period penalties (three of which were 10 seconds apart on separate faceoffs..), and other times the game just kinda goes nutty with goalies failing (Thompson was particularly bad in this one, from what I watched). Hughes/Sergachev were both plays (though just use that on Pietrangelo, or play Boeser/Miller over Eichel/Stone and win by even more), and Ingram as a chalky pivot off the chalk (the field amazes me sometimes..) hits in a loss with a monster 21 point score.

But the element of this lineup that really embodies this season is the Veleno Rasmussen Detroit… stack? that goes for 36 at a combined $6.6k. A first line center, playing top PP and 2nd PK unit with zero rates to speak of, stacked with a second-line winger playing 2nd PP and first PK unit. The first correlation Rasmussen shares with Veleno is the complete lack of any sort of shots/blocks rates to speak of.

Oh, and of course the shorthanded goal they linked up on with an empty net. 19 DK points, in the blink of an eye. That’s hockey, baby!

2nd and 3rd place were both good teams, built around VGK. I liked those teams, congrats to these two five-figure winners:

Some other slate thoughts in reviewing the field’s play:

• St. Louis chalk was a surprise. Thomas-Kyrou-Neighbours was pretty inexpensive, so ~9-13% on these guys was not surprising after I saw the projections and industry chatter, but heading into things they were never going to be on my radar, and I feel like I am higher on STL than most and lower on DET. Here’s hoping Dylan Larkin returns soon, as he and his family have been through an unbelievably difficult month.

• Evan Bouchard continues to be the “correct” way to play EDM, in my eyes. Despite EDM1 coming in 30%+ on all three players (including RNH, LOL of course he scores…), Bouchard was just half of that, at 14%. I believe (partially based on the Kucherov/Matthews commentary from above to do with shot volume) that McDavid is less likely to put a slate out of reach at his position than Bouchard is at his position, and Bouchard comes in cheaper and lower owned? Sure thing. 16 didn’t bury anyone last night, but it certainly didn’t hurt with the landmines strewn about the slate.

• 10% on every San Jose player on these massive slates has to stop soon, or else I’m going to have a hard time jamming the hell out of Couture/Hertl stacks when Couture returns to the lineup. At these ownerships though, just X out San Jose and move on until we see someone truly emerge as the alpha.

• Never play Nik Ehlers. Maybe some of you will listen to me now. But you won’t. Next slate is the slate, I swear! Donkeys.

Hee haw, talk next time. It’s shaping up to be a $111 tournament in January, which has me extremely intrigued.