Ryan Clifford brings you his top stacks and goalies for your NHL DFS GPP lineups tonight.
As always, I will do my best to keep the article updated to reflect any late scratches, line changes or surprise goalie confirmations. Please follow me on Twitter @RyanClifford as I will always post any updates that affect my article there, as well.
First off – be sure to check out Ken’s Cash Game Breakdown and Cheat Sheet for even more analysis of tonight’s slate.
Here’s a breakdown of tonight’s matchups, followed by my stacking recommendations for tonight’s GPP contests. Good luck tonight!
4-Man Stacks
TOR: Auston Matthews – Mitch Marner – Zach Hyman – Tyson Barrie
Winnipeg’s top line has an expected goals against of over 3 per 60 minutes. They’ll be tasked with shutting down Matthews and Marner tonight – this could be a long game for the Jets.
I have Toronto projected for about 36 shots on goal tonight. In ~67 minutes at 5v5 in road games, the Leafs have generated nearly 50 shots, and a ridiculous 12 (!) goals with Matthews and Marner on the ice together.
If you want to leave Hyman off of the stack, I have no problem with that…it’s something I’ll do myself in most TOR1 lineups. But I would also seriously consider getting some exposure to Tavares/Nylander in your TOR stacks. Since December 1, the Leafs have the league’s No. 2 ranked power play, while Winnipeg sits dead-last on the PK.
3-Man Stacks
BOS: David Pastrnak – Brad Marchand – Patrice Bergeron
#AlwaysBOS1…I also like to stick either Zdeno Chara or Charlie McAvoy onto my BOS1 stacks. These guys need to score at least three goals in order to pay off on their salaries. There is an incredibly high likelihood that one of these cheap defensemen that skate with the line at 5v5 will also get there.
FLA: Aleksander Barkov – Jonathan Huberdeau – Evgenii Dadonov
Ownership will be relatively high, and an Ottawa team that plays a bit better on home ice might help convince you to fade this line. You must understand what you’re fading though – at least the potential of what you’re fading. These three have one of the highest combined ceilings in the entire league, they’re playing in what I project to be the second-highest paced game on the slate, and only the Oilers are allowing more goals against per game since the beginning of December.
TB: Nikita Kucherov – Brayden Point – Ondrej Palat
This game projects to be the highest-paced game on the slate. To be honest, with no Brendan Gallagher in the Montreal lineup, that pace may come down a bit, but this Lightning trio also won’t have him to contend with – Gallagher and the top line would generally be shadowing these three with the game in Montreal. Tampa Bay’s top line is already controlling over 60% of the Corsi share in road games this season. The Bolts have an expected GF/60 of 3.4 with these three on the ice at 5v5.
VAN: Elias Pettersson – Brock Boeser – J.T. Miller
Tampa and Vancouver are my two favorite teams tonight. The Canucks have won five straight and are averaging over 4 goals per game over the past two weeks. There is something to be said for keeping consistent line combinations. The chemistry these trios are forming has been something to behold in recent games that I’ve watched from this team. Pettersson and Boeser always get the easier matchup on home ice – where the team is averaging over 4 goals per 60 minutes at 5v5 with the pair out together.
TB: Steven Stamkos – Anthony Cirelli – Alex Killorn
Back to Tampa. I love the ice time and correlations within this trio of forwards. Stamkos skates with Killorn on the top power play unit – Cirelli on the second. When the Bolts are shorthanded, Killorn and Cirelli are often out there killing penalties. Simply said, there is not a game situation where you’ll find these guys stuck on the bench. The Lightning average 3.5 goals per 60 minutes with these guys on the ice at even strength. Without Gallagher in the lineup, Montreal’s lineup thins out significantly. That benefits all Lightning players.
VAN: Bo Horvat – Tanner Pearson – Loui Eriksson
Back to Vancouver. Horvat actually gets the easier matchup on home ice, for a change. His line will be tasked with slowing down Patrick Kane, who is currently slotted to skate on a line with <checks notes> Ryan Carpenter and Dylan Sikura. In 11 minutes at 5v5 on New Year’s Eve, the Hawks allowed 7 shots, 5 high-danger chances, and a goal. They did manage to pot a couple, too, but defensively they were atrocious – very predictably so. The Canucks average 4.2 goals for per 60 minutes with these three on the ice together at 5v5.
TB: Cedric Paquette – Tyler Johnson – Pat Maroon
Need a cheap line to fit in the BOS1 and FLA1’s of the world? How about the Lightning third-liners. I was really liking this line before, but the addition of Tyler Johnson brings up the talent level even more. In what should be a shootout with the Habs, I think there’s a lot of validity to using a stack like this in GPP’s, where it allows you to pay up almost everywhere else. Just a couple of goals and you’ve got yourself the makings of a GPP-winning lineup.
VAN: Adam Gaudette – Jake Virtanen – Antoine Roussel
Yes, there is a trend tonight. The same type of reasoning I used above applies to this stack. In ~67 minutes of 5v5 play with these three on the ice, the Canucks have scored 6 goals – not bad for bottom-six guys. All three play on the ‘Nucks second power play unit, so you’re getting some proven upside, a healthy amount of ice time, and a solid matchup all for just over $10k on DraftKings.
One-Offs and Defensemen
After you’ve got your stacks plugged in, here’s a list of my favorite high-upside one-offs and defensemen.
ANH: Jakob Silfverberg, Ondrej Kase
BUF: Jack Eichel, Marcus Johansson
CGY: Mark Giordano
CHI: Adam Boqvist, Duncan Keith
COL: Cale Makar, Ryan Graves, Ian Cole
EDM: Connor McDavid, Oscar Klefbom
FLA: Mike Hoffman
MON: Shea Weber, Ben Chiarot
NYI: Casey Cizikas
NYR: Artemi Panarin, Filip Chytil, Brady Skjei, Adam Fox
OTT: Brady Tkachuk
STL: Alex Pietrangelo
TB: Victor Hedman, Ryan McDonagh, Erik Cernak
TOR: John Tavares
VAN: Quinn Hughes, Tyler Myers, Alex Edler
VGK: Max Pacioretty, Shea Theodore
WPG: Blake Wheeler
Goalies
Here are my top GPP goalies:
- Andrei Vasilevskiy, TB
- Semyon Varlamov, NYI
- Tuukka Rask, BOS
- Philipp Grubauer, COL
For more goalie plays and analysis – check out my Goalie Model, which is update daily.
