DailyFaceoff Wednesday GPP Stacks

Hey everyone, and welcome back. The NHL season is finally here and with that of course that means DFS. Tonight there is a four game opening night slate and while that isn’t the largest of slates I still think there will be some good options for stacking and I will outline my favorites below.

Winnipeg Jets:

On paper this is projected to be the highest scoring game of the night. Both the Leafs and the Jets have a ton of offensive firepower. I might be a tad off base with this statement but I feel like the Jets will be slightly lower owned than the Leafs tonight with players gravitating towards the names of Auston Matthews and William Nylander. So for me my focus is going to be on both of the top-6 lines for the Jets in Perreault-Scheifele-Wheeler and Ehlers–Little–Laine. I am more than fine with using either line tonight with Jacob Trouba on the blue line if you don’t have the salary for Dustin Byfuglein, but here is where you can make a GPP line that is a tad different. On shorter slates in particular I like to double stack a team using both top 6 lines or using 5 of the 6 top 6 skaters and using the top defensemen on the power play. In this case I have a slight lean to Trouba since he is less expensive as the top two lines of Winnipeg are fairly expensive. I will get into this strategy more as the season goes on but I will more than likely be deploying at least a couple of Jets six man stacks tonight. Even though Freddie Andersen is one of my favourite net minders I just don’t believe the Leafs are strong enough defensively yet to handle the offensive fire power of the Jets.

Calgary Flames:

The Flames travel into Edmonton tonight and while using the Connor McDavid line is an obviously and more than likely a chalky play I am on the other side of this game. More specifically I am on the Tkachuk–Backlund–Frolik line. Despite taking primarily D-Zone starts last year they were extremely productive 5v5 and more so on the power play (it appears Frolik is not on the power play unit to start the year at least). The two times they traveled to Edmonton last year, once the McDavid line primarily focused on the top line of Sean Monahan and Johnny Gaudreau and the other time they were separated but based off when they were together expect that top line of the Flames to see the McDavid line leaving secondary matchups for the Backlund line which is very favorable considering the Oilers aren’t exactly an offensive juggernaut. If you want to make this a four man stack I would recommend using TJ Brodie or Travis Hamonic as they are both on the second PP unit with Backlund and Tkachuk.

Philadelphia Flyers:

Maybe I just don’t believe in the Sharks anymore, maybe I am still skeptical about Joe Thornton coming back from a major knee injury at 38 and maybe I am bit delusional about moving Claude Giroux to the wing will rejuvenate his career, but here we are and I am most certainly willing to find out at their price. I think the line of Giroux–Couturier–Voracek should fly a tad under the radar considering how high everyone is on the Sharks tonight. Even if the Sharks primarily put the Thornton line on the Couturier line I am not fully convinced Thornton will be able to have his defensive capabilities at 100 percent this early in the season. On top of all that, the Flyers are very dangerous on the PP. While Giroux and Voracek are on the top PP unit, Couturier is on the second which is slightly a pain but if you want to make it a four-man stack I would use Shayne Gostisbehere on the blue line. If he is unable to play due to health reasons I would use who ever takes over the point in his spot, most likely Ivan Provorov.

You may have noticed that I did not write up the Penguins, Leafs, Oilers or Sharks. That doesn’t mean I do not like them tonight and probably will have exposure in GPPs, however, they will more than likely be the chalkiest Stacks of the night and if you have ever followed me or my work I am more of a contrarian player by nature. If you have questions about anything including these stacks feel free to reach out to me on twitter @jrh002DFS.

Good luck tonight and let’s win some money.