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Thursday night is our most loaded night of NHL hockey to date, with 14 games on the schedule and almost every team in the league in action. Stacking is usually the focus here for NHL GPPs on DraftKings, but it’s an especially important strategy when there are this many games and this many choices. Today’s article focuses on different categories of stacks for this NHL slate, which locks at 7:00 p.m. ET on DraftKings.
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Top Stacks
Colorado Avalanche
Nathan MacKinnon ($8,600), Mikko Rantanen ($8,200), Gabriel Landeskog ($7,200)
Boston Bruins
Patrice Bergeron ($8,000), Brad Marchand ($8,100), Craig Smith ($4,100)
Toronto Maple Leafs
Auston Matthews ($8,400), Mitch Marner ($7,300), Zach Hyman ($4,300)
The top line for the Avalanche is always in contention for this section, but it’s an especially easy call today with an elite matchup at home against the San Jose Sharks. The Sharks are arguably the worst defensive team in the NHL, but it doesn’t take much to put the Avs in play anyway — even with such high prices — considering how much offense they generate on a nightly basis.
The situation for the Bruins is a little different with a more difficult matchup against the Penguins, but with Jake DeBrusk out of the lineup the Bruins are moving Craig Smith up to the top line. This move will put the Bruins’ three best active forwards on the ice together and it makes them an appealing combination.
As for the Leafs, the Matthews line should spend plenty of time going up against Connor McDavid ($8,500), and while McDavid is one of the NHL’s best players and probably the leading candidate for MVP, his defense is easily the weakest part of his game and he generally doesn’t do much to limit scoring chances for his opponents.
Value Stacks
Pittsburgh Penguins
Evgeni Malkin ($5,200), Jason Zucker ($2,900), Kasperi Kapanen ($2,800)
Philadelphia Flyers
Travis Konecny ($5,200), Claude Giroux ($4,300), Nolan Patrick ($3,600)
Columbus Blue Jackets
Boone Jenner ($4,300), Cam Atkinson ($4,600), Jack Roslovic ($2,500)
Planning for line matching is always tricky since matchups are fluid throughout a hockey game, but the Bergeron line figures to spend most of its time up against the Crosby line, which leaves more room to operate for Evgeni Malkin. Malkin is also curiously priced down to almost $5K, and he’s playing with two talented linemates who are both under $3K, making this arguably the best value stack of the entire night even in a seemingly difficult matchup.
The Flyers have the easiest matchup of the teams listed here, getting another game against the Devils with goaltender MacKenzie Blackwood still out due to COVID-19 protocols, and Giroux comes at a significant discount too. On Columbus, Jack Roslovic will be making his Blue Jackets debut after being traded from Winnipeg, and he’ll join a talented line with Jenner and Atkinson that seems underpriced, especially for a relatively easy matchup at home against the Florida Panthers.
Contrarian Stacks
Tampa Bay Lightning
Brayden Point ($7,100), Steven Stamkos ($8,300), Ondrej Palat ($5,700)
Montreal Canadiens
Phillip Danault ($4,100), Tomas Tatar ($5,900), Brendan Gallagher ($6,000)
New York Islanders
Mathew Barzal ($6,300), Anders Lee ($6,100), Jordan Eberle ($5,500)
The teams named in this section are all likely to be overlooked to some extent, but the Lightning in particular seem like today’s best combination of low ownership and high upside. Facing the Hurricanes on the road isn’t generally that appealing, but Carolina is still playing without a full roster, as Teuvo Teravainen and Jaccob Slavin are still out of the lineup. Slavin in particular is a massively important player to Carolina’s defense, and his absence should directly lead to better quality scoring chances for Point, Stamkos, and Palat.
Set your DraftKings fantasy hockey lineups here: NHL $80K Twine [$20K to 1st]
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