Of the five games last night three of them featured re-matches from Wednesday night in which the visiting team who had to stay over on the road for two days lost — and lost by wide margins. It’s an extremely small sample size and all three teams (Pittsburgh, Chicago, St. Louis) were arguably underdogs in these spots. But the fact is they played WORSE last night than the first night in each situation and something that has been noted by the visiting teams is how they’re packing extra shit and sitting around bored in their hotel rooms this year.
For example on tonight’s games, the Minnesota Wild are in L.A. again for round 2 vs the Kings – who they played on Thursday. The Wild are staying in a hotel they normally stay at across from Staples Center but have noted how odd and eerie it is walking around in an empty hotel and with nothing going on outside. So these guys are going on the road and then just hanging out in their hotel rooms alone for a day or two. I mean, I have done this myself on business trips and it’s not the worst thing in the world to have a little peace and quiet but it’s just something worth monitoring. I would keep an eye on the home team on every B2B scenario with a day off where they lost the first game.
Such situations for today include
- NJ Devils (afternoon game)
- Arizona (afternoon game)
- NY Rangers … This one might not be applicable because the Isles technically aren’t traveling
- Detroit
- LA Kings
Saturday, January 16th
STACKS
DETROIT RED WINGS
Dylan Larkin – The Nephew of Todd Bertuzzi – Anthony Mantha
Detroit was SMOKED by a better Carolina team on Thursday. They got outshot almost 4:1 in the entire game and over the course of the season that’s probably gonna happen a few more times, but since they were so outmatched I’d be shocked if Detroit doesnt answer tonight and this top line is one of the best ones in DFS considering how much they dominate their teams offense and they’re all 6100 or cheaper tonight + PP1 correlation.
Correlate with: Sebastian Aho
TORONTO MAPLE LEAFS
Auston Matthews, Mitchell Marner, Morgan Reilly
Do not bet against a streak they say. Well, the streak right now through just three days is that you go right back to a star on the back-end of these back to backs who failed the game before. If nothing else, you go right back to a goal scorer who didn’t produce the night before. Marner is the guy I really want today because there’s no say he plays 24+ minutes again and doesn’t record a SOG, if not 7 of them. The Senators are definitely better this season, but I would not avoid attacking them just because Toronto1 sucked last night.
CALGARY FLAMES
Elias Lindholm, Matthew Tkachuk, Rasmus Andersson
I have a feeling we will be playing guys in the Canucks games a lot this season. Through their two games against the obviously talented Edmonton Oilers both games went off with the Canucks defense allowing 8 goals to Edmonton. While Calgary isn’t quite at that level they’re still a pretty good offensive team. The challenge I have with Calgary today though is that they’re spread out really with three two man lines, and so if you are stacking you should get creative and mix and match across the three lines. Lindholm/Tkachuk is my primary combination with Monny/Johnny and Backlund/Mangiapane being the other combinations to consider from Calgary.
No matter what, I expect Calgary to score on the power play tonight.
LA KINGS
Kopitar, Brown, Iafallo + Doughty
I really do like the Kings tonight and I think that Vegas is measuring these teams wrong. They scored 7 goals in an OT game the other night and I expect this one to go over the 5.5 total again today. Athanasiou gives the Kings some much needed speed on their second line and he scored on Thursday but the Kopitar-Brown-Iafallo line was really good and should produce nice DFS value again today.
POSITIONAL ONE OFFS
CENTERS
Leon Draisaitl (EDM)
Anze Kopitar (LAK)
Sebastian Aho (CAR)
Ryan Johansen (NSH)
WINGS
Filip Forsberg (NSH)
Brendan Gallagher (MTL)
Jonathan Marchessault (VGK)
Value: Cam Atkinson, Evgeni Dadanov (I know we’re not in Florida anymore, but 2500? Sheesh), Alexis Lafreniere
DEFENSE
Shea Weber (MTL)
Morgan Rielly (TOR)
Drew Doughty (LAK)
Ryan Ellis (NSH)
GOALIES
Robin Lehner (VGK)
Jonathan Bernier (DET) … If you want someone who is cheap and fits into the B2B home team model then look here. He should see plenty of SOG attempts at him to negate giving up 1 or 2.
Juuse Saros (NSH)
NY Rangers Goalie — Whichever is confirmed, its expected to be Georgiev
SLAP … SHOTS!
LINE LOCK OF THE NIGHT: Larkin – Mantha – Bertuzzi ( Red Wings )
ONE OFF STUD WINGER: Mitchell Marner
ONE OFF VALUE WINGER: Alexis Lafreniere – Gets first goal tonight.
TOP DEFENSE-MAN: Shea Weber
GPP FADE TEAM OF THE NIGHT: Golden Knights
FAVORITE BETS:
- Kings / Wild O5.5
- Habs / Oilers O6.5
- Hurricanes / Red Wings O5.5
- LA Kings ML +120
- Auston Matthews to score 2 Points or more … Go 2U on this. Going to chase it until it happens.