Welcome to Monday edition of the daily fantasy hockey morning coffee. We start the week with a very small slate to work with with only three games on the slate tonight.
From those three games, there are two games that will make up the main focus of my roster construction tonight:
St. Louis Blues @ Philadelphia Flyers (Philadelphia, -125, 5.5 over/under)
Toronto Maple Leafs @ New York Islanders (even, 5.5 over/under)
Buffalo Sabers @ New Jersey Devils (New Jersey, -120, 5 over/under)
The game I have the most interest in the Toronto at New York game. When this game was first posted we saw a 6 over/under and I do think we will see plenty of goals in this one from both sides. In their past two games the Toronto Maple Leafs have scored seven goals and have allowed 10. In New York’s past two games they have scored eight goals and have allowed 10.
Last month Toronto was fifth in the NHL in scoring with 3.46 goals for per game. On the season, on the road, Toronto ranks sixth with 3.00 goals per game. Looking deeper into the numbers we see that, adjusted for score and venue, Toronto has an xGF/60 of 2.70 — seventh-highest in the NHL. And Toronto generates the fourth-most scoring chances with a solid SCF/60 number of 8.74. Adjusted for score and venue, the Islanders have an xGA/60 of 2.74 — eighth-highest in the NHL. And New York’s SCA/60 of 8.36 puts them on tier with Arizona and Philadelphia. Toronto should get plenty of scoring chances against New York tonight.
If you’re familiar with this space, and are a multi-entry GPP player, you know I like to advocate grabbing shares of all three of Toronto’s top three lines — with the Matthews line the line I look to if you are playing just one of these lines: