Below I’ve got a discussion of the best matchups and potential stacks of the day followed by cash game rankings for tonight’s DraftKings contests. At the bottom of the post I’ve embedded my research chart for the day. Here is just a snippet of the chart I’ll use to explain what you’re looking at.

First the colors. 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 fifth 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 at his position in action today. Then we have ‘OPPz’ which is how far above or below average the player’s matchup is. Quality of matchup is determined with a mix of Corsi against and save percentage of the team the player will be facing. ‘Pts/Gm’ is a projection derived from numberfire.com’s rest-of-season projections. The ‘z’ next to the projection is how far above or below average the projection is compared to all other players at the position in action today. ‘zTOTAL’ is the player’s projection z-score combined with his matchup z-score. And then ‘zDIFF’ to the right of zTOTAL is zTOTAL minus the player’s salary z-score. The zDIFF column is really what we’re looking at.

Make sure to check Twitter for any injury news and line changes, and check Daily Faceoff for starting goalies.

Stack Options

Buffalo is playing on the road in the second half of a back-to-back? Yup. They’re in Vancouver tonight and the Canucks are an obvious team to stack. Of course everyone playing NHL contests tonight knows that, so going elsewhere in GPPs might not be a terrible idea. The Canucks aren’t a great offensive team, and, in fact, they’re kinda bad. In my opinion they’re one of the six worst offensive teams in the league. Maybe they’ll dominate this game in fairly low scoring fashion like 2-0 or 3-1. If you’re just making one GPP lineup, I’d look elsewhere just to be contrarion. But if you’re playing cash games of making multiple GPP lineups, you should have Vancouver exposure.

From the Canucks I like the first line pair of Henrik Sedin ($4,000, C) and Radim Vrbata ($5,300, W) and the third line pair of Nick Bonino ($4,100, C) and Jannik Hansen ($3,100, W) because I like depth lines at home. I also like Alexander Edler ($4,200, D) who plays on the top power play unit with the Sedins, Vrbata and Bonino.

Aside from Vancouver, no other team has a really good matchup. In my estimation, Buffalo is the only one of the ten best matchups for opposing skaters in action tonight. As a result, we’ve got to turn to the elite offensive teams in action tonight, St. Louis and Nashville, both of whom played last night. St. Louis is a top three offensive team by my calculation and Nashville is a borderline top five team. But of the two St. Louis has a much, much better matchup. It’s not a good matchup as they’ll face Carolina who is pretty close to average defensively. But it’s way better than the matchup Nashville has against the often impenetrable Semyon Varlamov. The Avs, Habs and Rangers are stopping 94%+ of shots on goal over the last 20 games or so, and no other teams are really close to that trio in the goaltending department.

From the Blues I again like pairs of forwards from the first and third lines. The Blues are on the road, which means I wouldn’t usually use their third liners. But the forward depth in St. Louis is kind of ridiculous, and they don’t have your typical third liners. The third line is centered by Paul Stastny ($4,400, C) who I’d pair with his left winger, Jaden Schwartz ($5,500, W). And from the top line I like David Backes ($7,700) and T.J. Oshie ($5,400, W). On the blue line I like Kevin Shattenkirk ($5,300, D).

And then finally I think the Chicago-Anaheim game has the chance to be a high scoring affair. Despite allowing six goals to San Jose last night, Anaheim grades out as a below average matchup for opposing skaters, and Chicago is basically an average matchup. Plus it was Ilya Bryzgalov that gave up those six goals last night, and Frederik Andersen will likely be in goal tonight. I also tend to prefer home teams. So from the (Mighty) Ducks I like second line center Ryan Kesler ($5,300, C) and his right winger, Kyle Palmieri ($4,200, W). I think the Blackhawks will make every effort to take away the Getzlaf/Perry line, so I’m leaning towards the third line for a Ducks-heavy stack. I like Nate Thompson ($2,700, C) and Jakob Silfverberg ($4,000, W). I like Sami Vatanen ($4,600, D) on the blue line, but he doesn’t play on the power play with any forwards I plan to use (he’s with Getzlaf/Perry). Feel free to use Hampus Lindholm ($3,700, D) who plays on the second PP unit with Kesler/Palmieri.

Price-Adjusted Cash Game Rankings

Center

1. Nick Bonino – $4,100 – Vancouver Canucks
2. Paul Stastny – $4,400 – St. Louis Blues
3. Ryan Kesler – $5,300 – Anaheim (Mighty) Ducks
4. Adam Henrique – $4,100 – New Jersey Devils
5. Jonathan Toews – $5,300 – Chicago Blackhawks

Winger

1. Radim Vrbata – $5,300 – Vancouver Canucks
2. Jaden Schwartz – $5,500 – St. Louis Blues
3. T.J. Oshie – $5,400 – St. Louis Blues
4. Kyle Palmieri – $4,200 – Anaheim (Mighty) Ducks
5. Chriz Kunitz – $5,100 – Pittsburgh Penguins
6. Jeff Skinner – $4,500 – Carolina Hurricanes
7. Marian Hossa – $6,000 – Chicago Blackhawks

Defense

1. Kevin Shattenkirk – $5,300 – St. Louis Blues
2. Sami Vatanen – $4,600 – Anaheim (Mighty) Ducks
3. Alexander Edler – $4,200 – Vancouver Canucks
4. Andy Greene – $3,400 – New Jersey Devils

Goalie

Goalies with an asterisk next to their name are second on their team’s depth chart, 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 Daily Faceoff for starting goalie updates in case I am unable to update the list throughout the day.

1. Jake Allen – $7,600 – St. Louis Blues
2. Semyon Varlamov – $8,200 – Colorado Avalanche
3. Cory Schneider – $8,500 – New Jersey Devils
4. Ryan Miller – $8,900 – Vancouver Canucks

Research Chart

You can download the research chart from this Google Sheet page here.