Welcome to the Wednesday edition of the daily fantasy hockey morning coffee. After a nice 13-game slate to work with last night we only have two games to work with tonight for our daily fantasy hockey needs.
Montreal Canadiens @ Buffalo Sabres (Montreal, -130, 5 over/under)
New York Rangers @ Washington Capitals (Washington, -180, 5.5 over/under)
Keep in mind that almost by the sheer fact of FanDuel rules, every team is really in play tonight. So, while there are four teams in play, I’ll walk you through the two I want to lean on tonight.
The two teams I’ll lean on the most are the Washington Capitals and the Montreal Canadiens.
Since the All-Star break Washington has scored a league third-best 3.25 goals for per game and last month scored 43 goal over the course of 15 games played. Since the All-Star break Washington has had the best power play in the NHL with 24 power play goals in 85 power play chances (good for a 28.2 percent success rate). In March Washington’s power play didn’t slow down with 15 power play goals in 52 chances (good for a 28.8 percent success rate). Over their past 10 games Washington’s CF% of 54.33 is good for fourth-best in the NHL. Over their past 10 games Washington has a SCF/60 rate of 29.52 — good for fifth-best in the NHL — and if we take the sample size out to 25 games Washington has a SCF/60 rate of 28.64. Over their past 25 games the Rangers actually have a CF% in the mid-bottom tier of the NHL with CF% of 49.12 percent.
We do have to consider that Washington is on the second night of a back-to-back — and while Braden Holtby will get the start tonight for Washington after getting a night of rest last night — Washington has allowed an eighth-worst 3.07 goals against per game on the second night of back-to-backs. Since the All-Star break New York has scored an average of 2.76 goals for per game and last month averaged 2.73 goals for per game.
Still, I’m leaning more on