DFS Fantasy Hockey Daily Value Update – December 17

Florida Panthers at Toronto Maple Leafs

Florida is one of the hottest teams in the NHL right now (derp?) having gone 5-1 in their last six games. That list isn’t a bunch of slouches either, as you see Detroit twice and Montréal as well. A lot of that is tightening up defensively, as they haven’t allowed more than 32 shots against in any of those games and 26 or less in four of them.

The funny thing about this Panthers stretch is that they haven’t scored a power play goal in any of those games, and have allowed six power play goals against. In short, they are out-playing the opposition at five on five, something that bears out in their underlying season numbers.

Last night, Toronto looked about as flat and disinterested in any game that I’ve seen them play in nearly a whole week (that sentence is dripping with sarcasm).

After their best game of the year in a home loss to Los Angeles, they just didn’t even show up in a loss in St. Louis. The following game, they destroyed the reigning Stanley Cup champions before being embarrassed by a Pittsburgh team missing Evgeni Malkin, James Neal, Kris Letang and four other top six defensemen.

Maybe the Leafs light up Florida on special teams, maybe (probably) the Panthers dominate at even strength. Expect goals, but not much in the way of solid team play.

Michael Clifford

Michael Clifford was born and raised in Fredericton, New Brunswick, Canada and is a graduate of the Unviersity of New Brunswick. He writes about fantasy hockey and baseball for XNSports and FantasyTrade411.com. He can be reached on Twitter @SlimCliffy for any fantasy hockey questions. Follow @SlimCliffy !function(d,s,id){var js,fjs=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0],p=/^http:/.test(d.location)?'http':'https';if(!d.getElementById(id)){js=d.createElement(s);js.id=id;js.src=p+'://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js';fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js,fjs);}}(document, 'script', 'twitter-wjs');

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