Good morning everyone and welcome to volume 44 of the Top Shelf Knucklepuck Stacks! We have a cash-playable 10-game slate on this cool and rainy (and frankly, gross) Tuesday morning here in San Diego, California. I pride myself on having an article up early in the day so that you have time to read and then play with your children. I’ll make this quick today so sit back in your chair and enjoy!
***As a public service announcement, I will NOT have content the rest of this week or next week. This timing works out well as the NHL All-Star Game is next week so the action is limited anyhow.***
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 New Jersey Devils are playing on back-to-back nights after lighting the lamp eight times last night against the once world renowned Chicago Blackhawks. The team from the state full of swamps comes into tonight’s contest riding a high, but they are now on the road and away from the swamps on the crocodiles. Well, I kid, sort of, but you still cannot pump your own gas in New Jersey. Everyone should just have a Tesla anyhow. Again, I sort of kid. New Jersey will be facing a much better offense and defense in the Columbus Blue Jackets tonight. The home team has won three in a row and their top line (Pierre-Luc Dubois – Cam Atkinson – Artemi Panarin) has been deadly. Atkinson and Dubois have each recorded nine points in their last 10 while Panarin has logged 13 total points. They should take advantage of a tired Devils squad that is allowing the sixth-most goals against per game on over 31.7 shots against.
You can go back to the proverbial well and lock in Tampa Bay’s “second” line (Brayden Point – Nikita Kucherov – Tyler Johnson) and you may be able to get them at a discount on the road against the Dallas Stars. Kucherov and Point have been matchup proof this season and get to shoot on Anton Khudobin tonight. The netminder for the Stars has a save percentage of .923% in 16 appearances this season, which is decent, but the Lightning are averaging the second-most goals on the road. Yes, this stack is expensive, but it is impossible to ignore them on a 10-game slate.
Another team that cannot and should not be overlooked is the Winnipeg Jets. I think this team has been my favorite to watch all season as their blueliners are superb (even with the injuries to their defensive corps) and their offense is sensational. The first line (Mark Scheifele – Blake Wheeler – Kyle Connor) is also expensive (much like the teams mentioned above), but the trio can combine for five or more goals on any given night. The home team draws a tough assignment against the visiting Vegas Golden Knights, who have won 8 of their last 9 games, but Winnipeg is averaging the sixth-most goals per game on over 32 shots per contest. The over/under of this game is set at 6.5 so it’s clear that casinos are predicting and up-tempo matchup.
Other Notable Stacks
The stacks I wrote about above are the ones that I project to be highly-owned. When I write “highly-owned”, on a 11-game slate that typically means ownership of about 25% in GPPs. The stacks above also tend to be expensive. So, you will need to use some of the below mentioned stacks as fillers or as one-off individual plays to complement your high-priced stacks.
I love the matchup for the Nashville Predators this evening, but the top line (Ryan Johansen – Viktor Arvidsson – Filip Forsberg) doesn’t quite crack my top three stacks. They should take advantage of a tired Washington Capitals team that has looked sloppy and have struggled on the penalty kill.
Other stacks that you should have exposure to tonight are: Stars 1 (Tyler Seguin – Alexander Radulov – Jamie Benn), Vegas 1 (William Karlsson – Jonathan Marchessault – Brandon Pirri), and Carolina 1 (Sebastian Aho – Teuvo Teravainen – Michael Ferland).
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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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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!
