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Welcome to the NHL DFS Man Advantage for Monday night March 8th! Tonight we have a 6 game slate that has a weird start time, 8 pm on the east coast, so you have some extra time to get those lineups in!!
When you first look at this slate one really obvious thing slaps you right in face, Edmonton gets Ottawa on the second night of a back to back. Connor McDavid ($9,200/$8,700) is going to be the most popular play I believe and that is how it should be. McDavid should feast on a potentially tired Senators team that will most likely have their backup netminder in there. If you are playing cash games McDavid should be the first player you pick and build around him.
Other than the Oilers, I will want to get exposure to a few others games on this slate. San Jose hosts the Blues on Monday night and that will be where I want to look first to build around any Oilers stacks. If Nathan MacKinnon ($8,900/$8,300) is out again, then I think I will have some love for Arizona. Another interesting game is Vegas in Minnesota which is carrying a 5.5 over/under which seems low to me.
NHL DFS: Goaltenders
If you’ve read my articles this season or have been in discord you know I don’t like paying up for goalie so it shouldn’t come as a surprise that my two favorite goalies for Monday are Cal Petersen ($7,500/$7,100) on the road in Anaheim and then Darcy Kuemper ($7,100/$7,400) on the road in Colorado. Now, if we get word that MacKinnon is in, then I will come off Kuemper. If either of these goalies doesn’t start I am fine with switching to their backups. I am picking these two because of their matchup and ownership more than them personally.
If you don’t want to pay down in net, which I can definitely understand, I would look at Kuemper’s opponent on Monday, Philip Grubauer ($8,300/$8,300). Grubauer has won three of his last four starts and allowed just 4 goals in the three wins (five goals allowed in the one loss). If there is a downside to using Grubauer, it’s the fact that Colorado does not allow a ton of shots on goal and Arizona doesn’t shoot a lot (well below the league average).
Other Options: Marc-Andre Fluery ($8,100), Smith/Koskinen ($8,400/$7,800), Jordan Binnington ($8,200/$7,500) – As usual Binnington is a better FD play because of price.
NHL DFS: Slate Overview
With a smaller slate like this ownership will be more condensed and we will need to find spots that may be ignored by the majority of players. Now, I don’t know that San Jose/St. Louis will be ignored, but I do believe they will be overlooked for the higher priced Oilers, Golden Knights, and potentially the Montreal Canadiens as well.
St. Louis @ San Jose
Vladimir Tarasenko ($4,200/$6,900) returned from injury on Saturday night and while he didn’t pick up any points he did manage 4 shots on goal. Tarasenko was minimum price on DK, but FD players weren’t as lucky. DraftKings did raise his price some, but he still a great play at $4.2K on Monday. As for FanDuel, he is priced high so he might be very low-owned on that site, which makes him a good play there as well. Tarasenko is playing on the Blues top line with Ryan O’Reilly ($6,100/$6,900) and Jordan Kyrou ($4,700/$4,500). I do like the line stack here, but I think I may prefer to pair him with one of either Brayden Schenn ($6,000/$6,400) or David Perron ($7,000/$7,100) with Torey Krug ($5,600/$5,300) for a power-play stack. San Jose’s penalty kill is in the bottom half of the league and the allow the 10th most power-play opportunities.
San Jose’s penalty kill isn’t the only bad one in this game, St Louis does not have a good penalty kill as well. The Blues allow the second-most penalties in the league and are ranked 25th in the league in penalty kill %. If you have the salary, the Sharks top unit is the way to go, but with a penalty kill as poor as the Blues, I like using the value on the second unit to get exposure to the Sharks but have the salary to pay up for the likes of McDavid and Rantanen.
I know when you look at the numbers they haven’t been producing as you’d want, but I think for their prices you don’t need much from them. My favorite play on that power-play unit is Rudolfs Balcers ($2,800/$3,300). Balcers has a goal and an assist in three games against St. Louis this season already as well as five shots on goal and 4 blocked shots. Mario Ferraro ($3,300/$3,700) plays the point on that second PP unit and has good numbers against the Blues as well this season. In five games Ferraro has 8 blocked shots, 5 shots on goal, and 2 assists. If Timo Meier sits again, John Leonard ($2,500/$3,500) should remain on line 2 in his spot.
Obviously the big teams to pay up for are teams like Edmonton, Colorado, Vegas, and Montreal, but I think people will sleep on this game and we could get some good plays at low ownership on Monday night
NHL DFS: Defensemen Rankings
Top Defensemen
- Jeff Petry (MTL)
- Jakob Chychrun (ARI) – INSANELY cheap on FD
- Shea Theodore (VGK)
- Thomas Chabot (OTT)
- Darnell Nurse (EDM)
- Brent Burns (SJ)
- Tory Krug (STL)
- Drew Doughty (LA)
- Samuel Girard (COL)
- Jonas Bordin/Matt Dumba (MIN)
Alec Martinez is great play, but is just stupid cheap on FanDuel. He is still a good DK play, but is just insanely cheap ($3,800) on FD. Pietrangelo should be out for Vegas on Monday which only makes Martinez an even better play.
Top Value Defensemen:
- Nicolas Hague (VGK)
- Erik Brannstrom (OTT)
- Cam Fowler (ANH)
- Matt Roy (LA)
- Radim Simek (SJ)
- Tyler Myers (VAN)
- Mikey Anderson (LA)
- Jacob MacDonald (COL)
Thanks for reading this article on the NHL DFS Man Advantage for Monday, March 8th, 2021. Make sure you head to the Win Daily Sports Discord for up-to-date info and help directly from our pros! Head over to Twitter and give the @WinDailySports account and me (@MVecchio81) a follow for all things Fantasy Sports and make sure to check out WinDailySports.com for more money-making content.
