What you need to know
This slate has no Edmonton or Toronto.
STACKS
NY Islanders
Nelson – Beauvillier – Bailey – Leddy
Barzal – Bellows – Eberle
The Isles get to face off against a Washington team who played the JV Sabres last night and Washington is rolling offensively with 5+ goals as a team in every game over the last week and a half. A lot of this is due to Ovechkin getting his legs under him but it’s also correlated with Tom Wilson being out of the lineup and the Caps just opening things up more offensively. That will backfire though when you have to deal with Mathew Barzal, Brian Bellows kid and of course Mr. Cap Killer Josh Bailey. Love the Isles to beat the Caps tonight in a 5-2 game. I would be less concerned here with forcing a correlation and more just ensuring you have Barzal or Nelson along with two of Bellows, Bailey, Beauvillier, Eberle. Given Washington’s struggles against LW’s lately the play for me is going to be Kieffer Bellows.
Colorado Avalanche
MacKinnon – Landeskog – Rantanen
It’s been a few frustrating games with the Avs lately because two games ago they only put up 2 goals despite both coming from that expensive top line. Then last game it was the Nazem Kadri show (he actually has 3 of his last 4 games in double digit fantasy points), and the production was just spread all around. Tonight they welcome in the other LA team in the Ducks and the Avs should generate a good volume of mid danger zone shot attempts, which greatly favors the COL1 line again — so call me crazy, but I’m going back there.
POSITIONAL TARGETS
CENTER
Mathew Barzal (NYI)
Sebastian Aho (CAR) … Has 2 goals, 3 assists over last four, should be in a good spot to see shot volume and this is one of the better PP vs PK spots tonight.
Nathan MacKinnon (COL)
Brayden Point (TB) … Interesting spot here as Tampa should throttle Dallas, but the Stars usually play better @ home and Tampa is coming off an afternoon game yesterday.
WINGS
Taylor Hall (NJD) … My lock winger goal tonight.
Gabriel Landeskog (COL)
Ondrej Palat (TB)
Kirill Kaprisov (MIN)
Kieffer Bellows (NYI)
Jakub Vrana (WAS) … Young legs can handle the B2B and he sure as hell didn’t do much last night.
Nino Niederreiter (CAR)
DEFENSE
Damon Severson (NJD)
Rasmus Ristolainen (BUF)
Dougie Hamilton (CAR)
Nick Leddy (NYI)
TOP VALUE
Severson, Ristolainen, Bellows, Getzlaf
GOALIES
We continue to see lots of value in simply trusting the goalies against teams who are on B2B, but I am not rushing to that with New Jersey today because I am picking the Sabres to end their losing streak out of nowhere tonight. So obviously that’s a chalky spot to look at for some given cheap prices and bad offenses.
- James Reimer
- Jonas Johansson / MacKenzie Blackwood … Blackwood is good, but Sabres win.
SLAP SHOTS
| LINE LOCK OF THE NIGHT | Matthew Barzal – Kieffer Bellows – Jordan Eberle (NYI) |
| ONE OFF STUD | Sebastian Aho |
| ONE OFF CONTRARIAN | Taylor Hall |
| BEST VALUE | Kieffer Bellows |
| TOP DEFENSEMAN | Rasmus Ristolainen |
| FAVORITE BETS | Sabres +160
Islanders/Caps O5.5 |