Good morning everyone and welcome to volume 27 of the Top Shelf Knucklepuck Stacks! We have a cash-playable 10-game slate on this beautiful and sunny Saturday morning here in San Diego, California.
If you are a new subscriber to our NHL Core Plays, please make sure that you are playing all of the lineups that I post on any given day. NHL is such a highly-variant sport and there is truly no telling which lineup will go off. I do have my favorites each day, but even the lineups that I may not think have massive upside sometimes, in fact, have the upside you need to take down a tournament.
Top Stacks
The big game that should be exciting to watch from an offensive perspective and one that you should obviously have heavy exposure to in cash games and tournaments alike is the contest between the two teams from Florida. The game carries an over/under of 6.5 and, as the road favorites, the Lightning have an implied goal total of 3.5. The home squad is allowing the fourth-most goals against per game which provides the visiting team’s second line with a prime opportunity to rack up goals. Without Vincent Trocheck, the Panthers have been vulnerable in their own end as they lack a shutdown defender. I expect the Lightning’s second line to have the best line matchup on the road. At the other end, you should continue to stack the Panthers’ first line (Evgenii Dadonov – Aleksander Barkov – Mike Hoffman) and top power play unit as the team’s man advantage has been deadly over the past few weeks. The special team has racked up five power play goals over its last four contests and I don’t suspect this scoring will let us tonight as the visting team has surrendered 11 power play goals against in its last 10 contests.
Aside from that high-octane game, I want exposure to the Columbus Blue Jackets top line (Artemi Panarin – Pierre-Luc Dubois – Cam Atkinson) and top power play unit on the road in Brooklyn. The home team has the fourth-worst CorsiFor% figure in the league and they are also allowing the eighth-most shots against per game. Atkinson has an incredible 15 points (10G, 5A) in his last 10 games while Panarin is also averaging over a point per game over his last 10 contests (2G, 10A). The centerman should not be overlooked as he is also averaging over a point per game through his last 10 (6G, 8A). This Blue Jackets line should be in line for at least three goals this evening and should be used heavily.
Other Notable Stacks
With 10 games, you should make sure that you get sufficient exposure to all of the lines that you want. Outside of the top three stacks that I covered above, you should also have exposure to the following lines set forth below.
The Winnipeg Jets top line (Blake Wheeler – Mark Scheifele – Nikolaj Ehlers) and top power play unit have looked tremendous and get a juicy matchup in the swamplands of New Jersey. Continue to stack them. You cannot overlook the Patrik Laine add-on for a power play stack.
The Minnesota Wild second line (Mikael Granlund – Eric Staal – Jason Zucker with Matt Dumba) continue to rate highly in my model. They are at home and are hosting a Toronto Maple Leafs team that is allowing the sixth-most shots against per game.
An interesting game stack is the one featuring two intrastate teams in Pennsylvania. This game always tends to be chippy so your focus should be on the teams’ man advantage units.
* * *
There were some questions in the Slack chat over the first month of the season 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.
* * *
Feel free to comment here or post a screenshot or photo on Instagram and remember to tag me @NotTonyM. I am always open to feedback and critique. Just remember, I respond to respect and love in whatever the message is that you want to share. Good luck!
