Welcome to the Wednesday version of our Daily Fantasy Hockey Morning Coffee. Today we have a small three-game slate on the table — so our options are limited. This might be a night to keep your volume low entering tournaments.
Last night was the first time things went so against what I thought I would happen I just shut my phone off, stopped checking my laptop, and unplugged. We will have nights like this in DFS, but it just seemed like the dominoes would not stop falling. Montreal faced what essentially was Boston’s fourth-string goaltender while Boston was on the second night of a back-to-back on the road … and Montreal only scored three goals. The Canucks faced the best offense in the league, on the road, riding a league-worst goals per game average … they won 5-3. I pushed heavily for the Dallas end in my piece yesterday … they allowed eight goals. The only thing that really saved my lineups was the one-off pick of Patrik Laine, who scored a hat-trick.
But we’ll get back on track today. One down night won’t change how I approach my lineup construction.
We have:
Anaheim Ducks @ Columbus Blue Jackets
Ottawa Senators @ Buffalo Sabres
Chicago Blackhawks @ St. Louis Blues
Let’s start with the Ducks vs. the Blue Jackets. Columbus vaulted themselves all the way up to a fifth-best in the league 3.20 goals per game average with a 10-0 victory over Montreal last week. If we eliminate that game, we’re looking at a team closer to 2.44 goals per game. It may not be fair to completely eliminate it, but it’s such an anomaly that I don’t feel comfortable factoring it into our overall numbers. Trust me, the outburst will factor into some of my decision making, but let’s take a look at what they did prior to that game:
Leaving out the 10 goal game, and taking into consideration that Anaheim has allowed a league seventh-best 2.38 goals per game, makes the matchup less juicy than it would appear if we just took a bird’s eye view of the numbers.
To make matters worse for our DFS needs is the fact Columbus has allowed a league third-best 2.10 goals against this season.
So where do we find goals in this game?