Today’s NHL Cash Game Breakdown goes over Friday’s (5) game slate that has a roster lock of 7:00 PM ET/4:00 PM PT.
UPDATE (5:45 PM ET): With Kaliyev out of the lineup for the Kings, I am going to move Iafallo into the rankings (I LOVE LA1 in GPPs) and Cousins as the min priced punt play.
As a reminder, this is going to be our content schedule throughout the season:
*Projections by Ryan Clifford for every slate (available for download AND uploaded into the optimizer)
Monday-Friday
*Lineup Coach in chat 1 hour before lock each slate
1 Games: Showdown Article for the last game
2 Games: Slate Breakdown (Last minute change)
3-4 Games: Cheat Sheet and GPP Breakdown
5 Games or More: Cash Game Breakdown, Cheat Sheet, and GPP Breakdown
Saturday-Sunday
1 Game: Showdown Breakdown
2 Games: Slate Breakdown (unless one early NBC game and one late game, then it would be a Showdown Breakdown)
3 Games or More: Cheat Sheet and GPP Breakdown
Additionally, you can keep an eye on late news by looking at our NHL Team Beat Writers lists on Twitter by clicking here.
Beyond that, you should also absolutely use Left Wing Lock for lines by clicking here and goalie confirmations by clicking here.
Yesterday was definitely brutal and should be used as an example of how unpredictable the sport of hockey can be. The Habs definitely underperformed, but they still should have won the game (based on expected goals). The Rangers top line was oddly popular yet they didn’t do anything until, of course, the good old EMPTY NET. All of the big favorites outside of the Leafs lost. The big GPP winner on FD played Matt Murray naked.
In general, things have gone pretty well for us this season, but the variance was bound to kick in at some point. With that said, it’ll be interesting to see how Montreal’s ownership will be in the next game against Ottawa LOL
Positional Cash Game Rankings
Centers
- Aleksander Barkov, Panthers (DK: $7500, FD: $7400)
- William Karlsson, Golden Knights (DK: $5000, FD: $5200)
- Brayden Point, Lightning (DK: $7700, FD: $7500)
- Patrice Bergeron, Bruins (DK: $8300, FD: $8200)
- Matt Duchene, Predators (DK: $4500, FD: $5000)
- Cody Glass, Golden Knights (DK: $3400, FD: $3300)
- Barkov’s line with Duclair and Verhaeghe is just phenomenal. They cycle the puck well and are all extremely strong on the forecheck. While I love Verhaeghe and Duclair’s values, this is a situation where I just want a bigger piece of the pie, and that big piece is Barkov. This is largely because of his role on Florida’s top power-play unit, which did work yesterday against the worst PK in the league.
- It actually looks like both of VGK’s top two lines have been splitting a lot of assignments at home against the opposition’s top lines. If we learned anything from the Ducks/Kings game, it’s that the Kings top line with Kopitar is really the only line that can be counted on to not struggle in their own zone. With the Kings lack of depth at the blue line, I think this is a situation where we’re going to want to attack with VGK2 (Smith/Karlsson/Marchessault), and perhaps select members of VGK3.
- Probably not going to be playing Bergeron AND Pastrnak together myself, but if you decide to go that route, I’m not gonna stop you. BOS1 is crazy good and with no Couturier,
Wingers
- David Pastrnak, Bruins (DK: $9000, FD: $8300)
- Patric Hornqvist, Panthers (DK: $5900, FD: $5500)
- Filip Forsberg, Predators (DK: $5500, FD: $7300) // better play on DK
- Reilly Smith, Golden Knights (DK: $4400, FD: $4200)
- Max Pacioretty, Golden Knights (DK: $6900, FD: $8100)
- Nick Ritchie, Bruins (DK: $3900, FD: $4200)
- Alex Tuch, Golden Knights (DK: $4300, FD: $4500)
- Mikael Granlund, Predators (DK: $4200, FD: $5100)
- Ryan Donato, Sharks (DK: $3600, FD: $3800)
- Carter Verhaeghe, Panthers (DK: $4700, FD: $4500)
- Rickard Rakell, Ducks (DK: $4700, FD: $5700)
Arthur Kaliyev, Kings (DK: $2500, FD: $3000)- Alex Iafallo, Kings
- Nick Cousins, Predators
- Pastrnak’s price tag has gone to McDavid territory, but he still needs to be pushed into your lineups. He is just an absolutely insane hockey player who is fast, strong, smart, and has some of the most seamless scoring abilities of any NHL player you’ll see, and he tends to do it at rocket fast speed.
- Hornqvist has the slight edge over Forsberg today. Hornqvist’s line was actually matched up against Forsberg for a handful of shifts, and FLA2 was the line that had the edge. But the big thing there is that it was a matchup that really pushed the pace.
- Smith is only ahead of Pacioretty because of his price tag. I think there’s a lot of scenarios where you’re going to be able to get Patches in your lineup, given the value that I’ve outlined throughout this article.
Defensemen
- Shea Theodore, Golden Knights (DK: $6900, FD: $6400)
- Ryan Ellis, Predators (DK: $5500, FD: $5100)
- Victor Hedman, Lightning (DK: $7600, FD: $7100)
- Mattias Ekholm, Predators (DK: $3400, FD: $3900)
- Aaron Ekblad, Panthers (DK: $6500, FD: $5600)
- Cale Clague, Kings (DK: $2500, FD: $3600) // mainly a DK punt
- Remember when the Golden Knights would run 5 defensemen, and I kept pushing everyone to play Shea Theodore? I think you probably know why at this point. He is leading all defensemen in every shot category and hasn’t even had one game with less than 3 SOG. At this point, anyone who isn’t putting him in their cash game pool on a nightly basis is doing it all wrong.
- If I would have known that Ellis was bumped up to the top power-play unit, I probably would have been more willing to play him in cash yesterday. I calculate a stat called Fenwick+SB per game, and it’s super high for Ellis, who only trails Theodore and Pietrangelo out of the D playing tonight.
- With Ellis on the top unit, I definitely like Ekholm a little more because he’ll get an expanded role as a QB for the 2nd unit. He also is a player who will rack up the peripheral stats, and will provide great value.
Goalies
- John Gibson, Ducks (DK: $7800, FD: $6900)
- Andrei Vasilevskiy, Lightning (DK: $8500, FD: $8600)
- Chris Driedger, Panthers (DK: $7700, FD: $7500)
Core Four
DraftKings: David Pastrnak, Patric Hornqvist, Reilly Smith, Shea Theodore
FanDuel: Aleksander Barkov, David Pastrnak, Patric Hornqvist, Mattias Ekholm, Ryan Ellis
*No issues with Ekholm, just realized after doing some lineup construction that we didn’t need to go that cheap on FD where there’s a lot more room to maneuver.
