Good morning everyone and welcome to volume 10 of the Top Shelf Knucklepuck Stacks! We have a cash-playable 8-game slate on this absolutely beautiful Tuesday in San Diego. While we have had success in cash games through the first three weeks of the season, please continue to play lighter than you want to or typically would play. 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 chalk stack of the night is the Boston Bruins top unit, which has been the best line in the league thus far. The Bruins are on the road in Ottawa and while the Sens offense has been sneaky, their team defense is subpar and their puck control numbers are weak (bottom four in Corsi For %). Not only are the Bruins averaging the second most goals per game, but the Ottawa Senators are allowing the most goals against per game. Boston lit up the Senators on Indigenous Peoples Day and they should do so again. Vegas agrees with me and the Bs have the highest implied goal total on the day (Brad Marchand – Patrice Bergeron – David Pastrnak).
The Florida Panthers are no longer the sneaky stack that they once were. You must have heavy exposure to the team’s top six forwards even on the road in Madison Square Garden. The Rangers are allowing the 10th most goals against and the 10th most shots against. Load up on Vincent Trocheck, Aleksander Barkov, Jonathan Huberdeau, Evgenii Dadonov and Mike Hoffman.
Since it is National Seth Jones Day, we are going to stack the Columbus Blue Jackets top line of Artemi Panarin – Pierre-Luc Dubois – Cam Atkinson (with Zach Werenski and Seth Jones). This unit has looked great through 7 games as they are in the top 10 in most major offensive categories. The return of Seth Jones is an obvious indication that the team’s offensive numbers will continue to improve. The Coyotes have lost three of their last four and are playing in a get-away game before heading home.
Other Notable Stacks
Connor McDavid drives the Edmonton Oilers. Until the second goal of their last game, he figured in every single goal the team had scored until that point. He now skates with Ryan Nugent-Hopkins and Kailer Yamamoto and the team is at home skating against a Penguins team that has allowed the 7th most shots against per contest. This line has massive upside.
The Chicago Blackhawks have looked great offensively through 8 games as they are averaging the fourth most shots per game and the fifth most goals per game. While you can certainly roster the team’s second line featuring Patrick Kane, I prefer the team’s top line (Alex DeBrincat – Jonathan Toews – Dominik Kahun) at home against a struggling Anaheim Ducks squad that has the worst puck control numbers.
The Los Angeles Kings have not looked great this season and we have not been able to rely on them from a big game perspective. Thus, you may want to stack their top line on the road against the Stars (Alex Iafallo – Anze Kopitar – Tyler Toffoli – Drew Doughty). It’s a risky play, but you will be able to roster this stack at sub-5%.
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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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