Good morning everyone and welcome to volume 12 of the Top Shelf Knucklepuck Stacks! We have a cash-playable 7-game slate on this cool Saturday morning in San Diego. We are almost at a point where I’ll tell you to play your normal volume. Once again, it is still very early in the season and some teams are playing their second game today. If you skipped my article from Friday, October 5, 2018 or simply glazed over my sage advice on how to balance your DFS budget early in the NHL, please go back and read or revisit the piece. Let’s continue our Tuesday streak!
Top Stacks
The Boston Bruins top line (David Pastrnak – Patrice Bergeron – Brad Marchand) continues to play some of the best hockey of October. The same line skates together on the team’s top power play unit that has recorded four goals on the man advantage in the past two games. On the other side of the rink, the Montreal Canadiens have allowed seven power play goals against in their last six games. In this storied rivalry, load up on the Bruins.
The St. Louis Blues top line was a bit shuffled at some point during the team’s last games, but Brayden Schenn now centers Jaden Schwartz and Vladimir Tarasenko. The home team will host a Chicago Blackhawks team that has struggled in its own zone as indicated by the fact that they are allowing the 8th most shots against per game and 11th most goals against per game.
The Columbus Blue Jackets look rejuvenated following a 7-4 victory in which they recorded two power play goals. Seth Jones looked solid in his second game back since returning from an injury. The team’s depth lines did most of the damage on the road in St. Louis, but at home, Cam Atkinson, Pierre-Luc Dubois, and Artemi Panarin will have the best line matchups.
Other Notable Stacks
My sneaky, less than 5% owned stack of the night is the Arizona Coyotes top line and top power play unit that will face the weakest Tampa Bay Lightning line. The line is affordable across DFS sites and will free up cap space in order to roster a full stack of the Boston Bruins. Each of the top line skaters (Lawson Crouse – Alex Galchenyuk – Clayton Keller) regsistered at least one point in their last game out and they host a Lightning team that is playing in a get-away game. Moreover, not only will backup, Louis Domingue, get the start in a revenge game, but the Desert Dogs have top 4 puck control numbers (54.11 CF%).
Also in play are the Penguins PP, Toronto Maple Leafs top six (possibly at low ownership against the hot Jets), and the Minnesota Wild second line.
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There were some questions in the Slack chat over the past few days about how to find the lines that I list as my top stacks on the Top Shelf Knucklepuck Cheat Sheet. Head over to either DailyFaceoff.com or LeftWingLock.com to see which skaters are on each of a team’s lines and then build your line stacks. For example, if you see that my top stack of the day is “PIT PP1 / 1”, look at one of the two sites listed above and you will see that the top power play unit of the Pittsburgh Penguins consists of Patric Hornqvist – Evgeni Malkin – Sidney Crosby – Kris Letang – Phil Kessel. The team’s top line features Jake Guentzel – Sidney Crosby – Patric Hornqvist. I decided to leave off the players’ names from the line stacks because of the fact that they may change before the game or after the team’s morning skate (if applicable). Both sites I mentioned are updated regularly and typically accurate. If you’re ever lost, just ask questions in our Slack chat.
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