Below I’ve got a discussion of the best matchups and potential stacks of the day followed by player rankings for Monday’s seven-game slate of NHL contests around the industry. At the bottom of the post I’ve embedded my research chart for the day. Here is just a snippet of an old chart I’ll use to explain what you’re looking at.

First the colors. Purple/blue is amazeballs, green is great, yellow is good, orange is bad, red is awful and deep red is no effing way.

The first column that isn’t self-explanatory is the sixth one, the one that is titled ‘z’ to the right of salary. That is how far above or below average the player’s salary is compared to all other players in action today. ‘Proj.’ is a projection from my own Marcel-like projections. The ‘z’ next to the projection is how far above or below average the projection is compared to all other players in action today. And then ‘Value’ is the projection z-score minus the player’s salary z-score.

All shot attempt numbers discussed are at even strength, score-adjusted and weighted for recent performance unless otherwise noted.

And as always, make sure to check Twitter for any injury news, and check LeftWingLock for starting goalies and line combos.

Teams to Target

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Los Angeles home to Vancouver

This is one of two big mismatches of the day as the Kings lead the league in Corsi for Percentage of Total and the Canucks rank 25th. The Canucks also have the second worst team save percentage since the All-Star Break, so they’re a great matchup for opposing skaters.

As far as individual matchups go, you really just want to avoid rostering the Kings that will match up with the Sedin twins. In recent home games, Jeff Carter and the second line have drawn the opposition’s top line, so they’re the line to avoid in this matchup. But Anze Kopitar and the top line should see plenty of shifts against Vancouver’s depth lines.

Kopitar is joined by Tyler Toffoli and Milan Lucic at even strength. Toffoli joins him on the top power play unit, while Lucic plays with the second unit. Drew Doughty and Jake Muzzin are the defensemen on that top unit, and Alec Martinez plays with the second unit. All of those defensemen should see some work with Kopitar’s line at even strength, so they’re all options tonight, though Muzzin and Martinez are the better values.

San Jose on the road in Calgary

Calgary has the worst team save percentage in the league, and despite the solid play of Joni Ortio recently, he has been demoted with Karri Ramo rejoining the roster. The Flames only rank one spot better than Vancouver in Corsi for Percentage of Total, so this is another great matchup for skaters.

On an individual level, the plan is always to avoid Calgary’s top defensive pair, which is an excellent possession duo. They always match up almost exclusively with the opposition’s top line at home, so Joe Thornton’s line isn’t the best play tonight. There was a time frame where Calgary’s second line was a good possession unit that would make you think about rostering an opponent’s third line, but their second line as currently constructed is not imposing, so San Jose’s second line is the play.

San Jose’s second line is beefed up at the moment as Logan Couture and Joonas Donskoi, formerly on the third line, have moved up to join Patrick Marleau recently. Couture and Marleau play on San Jose’s loaded top power play unit, and Donskoi plays on the second unit. Brent Burns plays a ton of San Jose’s power play minutes, so he’s an option to be stacked with any of those forwards, but the second line plays primarily with Marc-Edouard Vlasic and Justin Braun at even strength. Vlasic sees some work with the second power play unit, so he and Burns are the stacking options.

Colorado home to Arizona

Colorado is not a good possession team, but neither is Arizona. And Colorado’s top line with Nathan MacKinnon and Gabriel Landeskog isn’t a terrible possession unit. But Arizona has one really bad possession line, their third, and Colorado tends to match up the MacKinnon line with opposing third lines in home games. Matt Duchene and the second line could see some of that matchup as well, but the Carl Soderberg line is likely to see Arizona’s top six exclusively.

MacKinnon and Landeskog are joined by the newly acquired Mikkel Boedker, and the trio stays together on the top power play unit. They tend to skate at even strength with Erik Johnson and Francois Beauchemin, but they tend to be joined by Tyson Barrie on the power play. Both Johnson and Beauchemin play on the second power play unit, so any of the three could reasonably be stacked with that line.

Player Rankings

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Here are positional rankings for tonight’s slate. The color of each player’s salary represents their value on that site. Once again, here’s the color code: Blue is amazeballs, green is great, yellow is good, orange is bad, red is awful and deep red is no effing way.

Goalies with an asterisk next to their name are not expected to start tonight but haven’t been ruled out, so don’t count on them playing. Any players in bold have been confirmed as the starter for the day. And players with a line through their name will not be starting tonight. Make sure you always check LeftWingLock for starting goalie updates in case I am unable to update the list throughout the day.

Research Chart

You can download the research chart from this Google Sheet page here. Please keep in mind that the projections and values in the chart below are based on matchups on the team level, not on an individual level. So if you see a name in the discussion section above or the rankings above and they have a good value grade here, then they’re a solid play.

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