Monday DFS: Line Matching Strategy
Josh Harris broke down stacking earlier, but one of the many ways to look at line stacking is to find line matches with an edge. Obviously before a game starts there’s no way of knowing exactly which line will match up against the opposition, but using Corsica (and while that function gets built out, NaturalStatTrick) to look at previous games should be a starting point.
To pull up the relevant information, looking at past games between the two teams (ensure the home team matches) is a good start if the home team coach is the same and/or the lines have stayed fairly consistent. Because that will tend to be a smaller sample, looking at the past five or six games of the home team’s matchups to see how the coach lines up their stronger possession players should also offer a good starting point.
Going through tonight’s 4-game slate, there are lots of +EV matchups to go through; while most DFS players will look at the Vegas game total and consider stacking the Chicago – Toronto game, there are some very poor possession players to take advantage of in the other three games. When last the Jets played the Oilers in Edmonton (December ’16), Todd McLellan used the Ryan Nugent-Hopkins (EDM2) line almost exclusively against the ostensible top line of Nikolaj Ehlers – Mark Scheifele – Blake Wheeler. With the Nuge typically being the “shutdown” centre of the Oilers, that EDM2/WPG1 matchup makes sense and should continue tonight.
What that means for tonight’s slate is that Connor McDavid should see the other Jets’ combos as often as combo, which will end up being a fantasy feast for “McJesus.” Going through the advanced statistics on McDavid’s expected matchups shows the advantages he’ll gain from both a puck possession and scoring chance perspective: the pair of Shawn Matthias and Adam Lowry were sub-50% in Corsi, Shots, Scoring Chances, and High-Danger shots last year, the 4th line of Andrew Copp–Brandon Tanev– Joel Armia were even worse (below 48% albeit in a small sample size), and for as good as Patrik Laine has been offensively, he struggles in his own end.
Conversely, the Calgary–Anaheim game offers a good way to avoid matchups: Randy Carlyle historically at home has thrown out his scoring line against the shutdown line of the opposition, and his shutdown line against the opposition’s best – hoping that his scoring can break through. That means that the Rickard Rakell–Corey Perry combination will be seeing most of their even-strength time against the very talented 3M line of the Flames (Tkachuk–Backlund–Frolik), making ANH1 a line to avoid.
As a final example from the Toronto game, Mike Babcock will likely throw the Kadri line against the most talented offense of Chicago – whether that’s CHI1 (Toews) or CHI2 (Kane) remains to be seen, but Babcock will also ensure Jake Gardiner is out as much as possible against those two lines. With strong possession player matching against strong possession player, the scoring in this game should come down to special teams play and goaltending. For DFS usage, that should mean stacking a power play unit over stacking an even strength line; as an example, going with Auston Matthews–William Nylander–Patrick Marleau will make more sense than using TOR1’s even strength linemate, Zach Hyman.
Hopefully this offers a new way to look at a slate beyond just the raw point numbers, as there’s a large edge to finding the right matchups and it offers a way to find undervalued plays at low ownership.