Another night, another small daily fantasy hockey slate on the docket. Tonight we only have four games to work with to construct our lineups. Of the four games there are two games in particular I want to target when constructing the majority of my lineups:
Toronto Maple Leafs @ Columbus Blue Jackets (Columbus, -160, 6 over/under)
Philadelphia Flyers @ Calgary Flames (Calgary, -135, 5.5 over/under)
The Columbus Blue Jackets are at home against a Toronto Maple Leafs team that are on the second night of a back-to-back. At home this season Columbus has scored a league sixth-best 3.25 goals per game. In six games this month Columbus has only averaged 1.83 goals per game but did not look bad in their 3-2 loss against the Rangers on Monday night. Over their past 10 games on the road the Maple Leafs have a SCA/60 rate of 30.58 — fifth-most in the NHL (per naturalstattrick.com). At home, over the past 10 games, the Columbus Blue Jackets have a SCF/60 rate of 34.26 — the most in the NHL. We should see plenty of scoring chances tonight for Columbus, especially with Toronto on that second night of a back-to-back. This month (counting the first six games) Toronto also has allowed a league third-worst 3.67 goals against per game. It looks like we’re set up for Columbus to break out of their scoring doldrums.
I always like to target the Columbus power play:
Nick Foligno $6.4K (18G, 22A, 18 PPP, 127 SOG)
Sam Gagner $4.2K (14G, 20A, 15 PPP, 115 SOG)
Cam Atkinson $7 K (27G, 22A, 19 PPP, 161 SOG)
Alexander Wennberg $5.7K (10G, 34A, 20 PPP, 74 SOG)
(D) Zach Werenski $5.1K (8G, 23A, 17 PPP, 129 SOG)
Brandon Dubinsky ($5.1K) should also be on your radar as he has three goals, five assists and 13 shots on goal over his past six games.
The Maple Leafs should also be on our radar as Columbus has allowed an average of 3.00 goals against this month and over their past 10 home games have a SCA/60 rate of 27.1. Like a broken record I once again think all three of Toronto’s top three lines are in play:
First Line:
Leo Komarov $4.5K (8G, 9A, 4 PPP, 66 SOG)
Nazem Kadri $6.8K(21G, 21A, 15 PPP, 164`SOG)
William Nylander $5.6K (14G, 22A, 16 PPP, 139 SOG)
Second Line:
James van Riemsdyk $6.9K (19G, 25A, 15 PPP, 158 SOG)
Tyler Bozak $5.8K (14G, 23A, 12 PPP, 103 SOG)
Mitchell Marner $6.8K (15G, 33A, 15 PPP, 139 SOG)
Third Line:
Zach Hyman $4.6K (8G, 15A, 118 SOG)
Auston Matthews $7.2K (27G, 19A, 13 PPP, 192 SOG)
Connor Brown $4.4K (12G, 11A, 3 PPP, 88 SOG)
Per Corsica, adjusted for score and venue, the Blue Jackets have an xGA/60 of 2.84 — fourth-highest in the league. I always like the Matthews line, but for player-point correlation the Marner/JVR/Bozak line makes sense as they skate together at even strength and on the power play.
The second game I am interested in is