Good morning everyone and welcome to volume 23 of the Top Shelf Knucklepuck Stacks! We have a cash-playable 14-game slate on this beautiful Wednesday afternoon here in sunny San Diego, California.
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 three primary stacks that you should build your tournament lineups around are the Pittsburgh Penguins first line (Pearson – Malkin – Kessel and Kris Letang to get a power play stack), Tampa Bay Lightning first line (JT Miller – Steven Stamkos – Nikita Kucherov) and Minnesota Wild first line (Mikael Granlund – Eric Staal – Jason Zucker).
The Penguins top line is in play regardless of whether Sidney Crosby laces up the skates as I believe that the Malkin line should have the better line matchup for offensive purposes while the Crosby line should focus on shutting down Tyler Seguin and the Stars top line.
The Lightning top line and top power play unit has looked stellar recently and they rate at the highest overall stack this evening. The loss of Vincent Trocheck hurts the other team from Florida and the fact of the matter is that the Panthers are still allowing the fifth-most goals against per game. Light up Stamkos and company tonight.
The Wild have the highest implied goal total on the slate and Devan Dubnyk is my top overall play in net. You know that whenever the Ottawa Senators play, especially on the road, you have to pick on them with the opposing offense as the visting team is allowing the most shots against per game, the most goals against per game and they have the worst puck control numbers in the league. As solid as the Senators offense has been, the team defense has been dreadful.
Other Notable Stacks
There is just so much to like on the largest slate of the season. It will be impossible to get exposure to every line that you want, but a few of my other favorites are as follows:
The Rangers and Islanders are skating in a game with an over/under of 6.5. Filip Chytil will be in our cash lineups, but don’t ignore his line mates Kevin Hayes and Chris Kreider for a full line stack. Also in this game, the Anders Lee – Mathew Barzal – Josh Bailey with Ryan Pulock line is in play for GPP purposes against a Rangers team that is allowing over 3 goals against per game on over 33 shots against.
Anaheim has been bad all season, but their top line (Rakell – Getzlaf – Kase) is in play at home against a banged up Vancouver Canucks team.
Don’t forget about the Winnipeg Jets second line (Laine – Little – Connor) on the road in the Saddledome. Yes, Calgary doused seven goals on the Vegas Golden Knights a few evenings ago, but the Jets offense is far superior from a talent and puck control perspective.
* * *
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!
