Good morning everyone and welcome to volume 18 of the Top Shelf Knucklepuck Stacks! We have a cash-playable 8-game slate on this beautiful Saturday in San Diego, California. We are supposed to have a high of 77 degrees and I must admit that it is far too warm for the Fall season, even for Southern California.
I wrote an entire play last night and I stayed up until 3:30am Pacific so this article may be a bit watered down than normal. I’ll be back on track Tuesday.
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 top stack comes from the team that Vegas currently has as the squad with the highest implied goal total. The Tampa Bay Lightning first line (and the top power play unit) has looked superb as of late. Their task is a bit easier today at home against an Ottawa Senators team that is allowing the most shots against and has a bottom three CorsiFor%. Your stack here is JT Miller – Steven Stamkos – Nikita Kucherov and Victor Hedman if he returns. If Hedman is out, Ryan McDonagh is immediately a top play at the point.
I feel as though the Carolina Hurricanes seem to only be rostered (I apologize for the past tense there) by the NHL DFS sharks. Here at Karma, we love the Hurricanes top line this evening opposite a Red Wings team that is allowing the third most shots against. Detroit struggles with high-danger scoring chances and with respect to puck control (i.e., bottom ten CF%).
Other lines we will roster today are the Penguins power play with Sid Crosby, Phil Kessel and Kris Letang as my focus. You will also want exposure to the Blue Jackets top line (yes, Oliver Bjorkstrand looked great with the first line, but monintor Cam Atkinson’s status) with Seth Jones. Of course, the Florida Panthers deadly top six skaters (with a power play focus) are in an awesome position at home versus the careless New York Islanders.
Other Notable Stacks
Much like Thursday night, and this was close to my analysis a few days ago. It continues to be in play this evening. The Patrice Bergeron line will be tasked with shadowing the John Tavares / Mitch Marner line. So, while I always love Bergon, David Pastrnak and Brad Marchand at home (and they will be heavily-owned), you can go back to the Bruins second line with the thought they can focus more on offense as opposed to defense. So, for the second game in a row, look at Boston’s second line (Jake DeBrusk – David Krejci – Joakim Nordstrom) to be in a better position to move the puck and score.
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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.
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