Good morning everyone and welcome to volume 32 of the Top Shelf Knucklepuck Stacks! We have a cash-playable 8-game slate on this sunny and cool Thursday 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 easy top stack today that jumps off of my screen is the Tampa Bay Lightning “second” line that features Brayden Point centering Nikita Kucherov and Tyler Johnson. The Point and Kucherov duo have been deadly since their pairing and the centerman now has 15 points (7 G, 8 A) in his last 10 while the winger has been more of a set-up man to Point as he has 18 (yes 18) points in his last 10 (3 G, 15 A). Not to be overlooked, the other winger, Tyler Johnson has 8 points during that same game span. The Lightning are at home and are a hosting a Maple Leafs team that is allowing the sixth-most shots against per contest. This should be one of the most exciting (from an offensive perspective) games on the slate and I want heavy exposure to the home squad. See under “Other Notable Stacks” for the other side of this game.
I love what the Buffalo Sabres top line (Jeff Skinner – Jack Eichel – Sam Reinhart) has been doing this season and, while the Arizona Coyotes are not the same dreadful defensive team that we have seen in years past, they have still lost three in a row and have surrendered an average of 4.33 goals against in that span. The Sabres have hit the 40-shot mark in two of their last three games and I love the spot for them tonight. Jack Eichel should also be a cash game fixture for you.
It is hard to ignore the Minnesota Wild’s top line right now (although many folks are for some reason). The team has been one of my favorite to watch over the past few years as their defensemen are excellent and Devan Dubnyk has developed into a top goalie in the league. Yes, they explode for six goals on nights when you don’t expect them to do so, but the fact is that they have massive GPP upside. Eric Staal centers Jason Zucker and Mikael Granlund and they should have a matchup against the Aleksander Barkov line, which is certainly not a defensive force. Ryan Suter and Matthew Dumba should be paired together and Dumba continues to have an insanely high ceiling for GPP purposes.
Other Notable Stacks
The Leafs have slowed down a bit over the last week, but in what should be a high-event game tonight in Tampa Bay, you should grab a line stack of the Leafs 2 (Andreas Johnsson – Auston Matthews – Kasperi Kapanen). Everyone will be on the Lightning, but in the event that Frederik Andersen stands on his head, give the Leafs second line a shot.
The Timo Meier – Logan Couture – Tomas Hertl line is the one to have exposure to this evening in the Shark Tank against a Dallas Stars squad that has dropped two and allowed a total of 10 goals during that span.
For GPPs, you have to stack the Columbus Blue Jackets top line (Artemi Panarin – Pierre-Luc Dubois – Cam Atkinson with Seth Jones) at home against a terrible Los Angeles Kings team that is playing on back-to-back nights.
A fun stack is the Vancouver Canucks second line (Elias Petterssen – Brock Boeser – Josh Leivo) on the road in Nashville.
* * *
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!
