NHL Stacking to Win 2-16-16

The Chalk

The Blues are in a great spot to score a bunch of goals tonight, with the Stars coming to town for a visit. This will be Dallas' sixth game in nine nights, fourth in six nights, third in four nights, and they also played last night. That doesn't happen too often for a team over the course of a season, and although Dallas has won four straight, their legs could be a bit tired tonight. The Blues have been playing much better hockey as of late, going 6-2-2 over their last ten. A big boost to their offensive attack has been the return of winger Jaden Schwartz, who was reunited with his line mates from last season, Vlad Tarasenko and Jori Lehtera. Lehtera makes for a great cheap play at center, but I wanted to focus on the Blues power play, and my top play on D of the night, Kevin Shattenkirk. The Blues 8th ranked power play will give the Stars 19th ranked penalty killing unit all they can handle. Kari Lehtonen is in net for the Stars tonight, and his adjusted save percentage of 91.42% (via War On Ice) is near the bottom of the league for goalies who've played at least 600 minutes this season. The Blues other top line has also been hot lately, and will have much lower ownership than Tarasenko and Co. The Steen, Berglund, and Backes line has three goals over their last three games, and Steen and Backes also play on the top power play unit. If you're playing cash games on Fanduel, Shattenkirk is a must play for his price.

Contrarian Corner

With the huge tournaments on Draftkings tonight, I'm going to go with three contrarian lines to help you take down one of those big GPP's. Patrice Bergeron took the morning skate today, but if I had to guess, he won't play tonight against Columbus. This should keep the line of Marchand, Spooner and Connolly together for at least another game, and they've been red hot lately with three goals over their last three games. Boston's fourth ranked power play should get plenty of opportunities to convert against a Blue Jackets team that has been shorthanded 198 times this season, third most in the league. Marchand is in a groove right now, with goals in seven straight games. I'm expecting a lot of goals in this game, and the Bruins have some other options I really like as well. David Krejci, David Pastrnak, Loui Eriksson, Jimmy Hayes, Zdeno Chara and Torey Krug will all be finding their way onto some of my teams.

If you're looking for a game to target that could be the highest scoring of the night, look no further than the Jets-Hurricanes match up. It's a very intriguing game DFS wise, as there will be some terrible goaltending, and value plays on both sides of the offense. The Jets have two lines I really like tonight, but I will have more exposure to this top line of Ehlers, Little and Wheeler. They've only been together a short while now due to injuries, and odd deployment from head coach Paul Maurice, but they've been dominant. In just over 53 minutes on the ice together, they have a ridiculous Corsi For Percentage of 66.4% (via Puckalytics), and the Canes will most likely be without top defenseman Justin Faulk again. Eddie Lack will also get the call in net for the Canes, and his adjusted save percentage of 91.35% puts him near the bottom of the NHL. The Jets second line is also in a great position tonight (Stafford, Scheifele, Perrault), as well a Dustin Byfuglien and Tyler Myers on the back end.

As I mentioned above, I expect to see the red light going off early and often in this game, and the Canes cheap third line is sure be closer to 0% owned than 5%. The Jets have the 28th ranked penalty killing unit on the season at 77.8%, and they've been shorthanded more than any other team. Carolina has so many good value plays tonight that it's hard to choose between them, but the three above all play on the power play, and Rask is coming off a two goal outing against the Islanders. Noah Hanifin and Jaccob Slavin and John-Michael Liles all are great cheap punt option on D as long as Justin Faulk remains out of the lineup. The Staal brothers, Kris Versteeg and Andrej Nestrasil are also great plays tonight for the Canes.