Daily Fantasy Hockey DFS Value Update – January 19

I will mention that I generally do not pick two players playing against each other in the same game for a daily fantasy hockey lineup. The same applies for a goalie and a player from opposite teams. You might see two players among the “value picks” from opposite teams, but that doesn’t mean you should take them both. No matter the value, you’re also likely cannibalizing points, so any gains made below a certain price point – the point where production and cost intersect – can be lost if production declines overall as well.

There are many things that determine value: The player’s history (both short and long-term), the price, recent production, opponent, line matching at even-strength, power play time and injuries are just some of the factors to consider. The “Top Value” doesn’t necessarily mean the cheapest player, either.

Finally, as far as goalies go, it’s the one position I’ll pay through the nose for if I really like the match-up. The same applies for back-ups with good match-ups. In a given night, with a full slate of games, I won’t have more than three different goalies across all my lineups, usually two. I’ll name the goalies I like specifically in the match-ups they appear in.

Here is today’s slate of games (and DraftDay values). Reminder: check Left Wing Lock for up-to-the-minute information on starting goalies.

Games are color-coded as follows:

Green means load up. Yellow means grab a couple of players. Red means value plays only.

Tampa Bay Lightning at Carolina Hurricanes

Tampa Bay is coming off a pretty entertaining game with the San Jose Sharks yesterday afternoon, a game which featured four Martin St. Louis goals but that the team ended up losing 5-4. The bright spot for them is that this team is 3-1-1 on the second game of back-to-backs since the Steven Stamkos injury. The bigger news of course is that defenseman Victor Hedman left the game with a lower-body injury in the third period and did not return. If he can’t go for Tampa Bay tonight, that’s a huge hole to fill on a short turnaround.

Carolina is coming off a 3-2 win last night at home against the Florida Panthers. The storyline out of that game is the day after Carolina general manager Jim Rutherford “called out” Alex Semin for being lazy and lacking focus, Semin scored the second and third goals for the Hurricanes, the latter ended up being the game-winning goal. Of course, his second goal put him in third place on the Hurricanes in points/60 minutes at 5-on-5 so it’s a matter of perception – Semin leads a bad possession team in possession rates, so I’m not sure how much “lack of will” Semin has.

With Hedman out for the Lightning, I’m not sure how much faith I can have in Tampa tonight. The last time these two teams met was about four weeks ago, an overtime win for Tampa. Without their best defenseman to shut down the top line from Carolina, I expect the Hurricanes to score their fair share of goals. Simply because of lack of choice, my goaltender for tonight will be whoever gets the nod in net for Carolina.

Washington Capitals at New York Rangers

Washington has now lost four straight games, the most recent on Friday night, a 5-1 drubbing at the hands of the Columbus Blue Jackets. This is a team that heavily relies on their special teams and so far in calendar 2014, the league’s best power play is just 15.8-percent while their penalty kill is just 69.2-percent. When a team this reliant on the power play takes a decline while their penalty kill falls apart, they tend to lose a lot of games and Washington has just two wins in their eight games in 2014.

The Rangers, on the other hand, are coming off a 4-1 win in Ottawa yesterday which gave the Rangers 10 straight games with at least 30 shots on goal (and 14 of 15 games). Their power play is clicking – 23.3-percent over their last nine games – while their penalty kill has left something to be desired, going along under 80-percent over those games. If they want to give themselves an easy game today, they’d do well to stay out of the box and not tempt fate with Alex Ovechkin’s weak-side one-timer.

These two teams have met twice since the start of December, both wins for the Capitals who outscored the Rangers 7-3 in those games (going 1-for-6 on the power play). For whatever reason, the Rangers have had a tough time breaking through on Capitals goaltending, scoring just three goals on 71 shots on Philipp Grubauer in those games. It’ll be interesting to see who gets the start tonight for Washington as Grubauer got pulled in his last outing.

I don’t feel great about this game but I’d have to put my eggs in the Rangers basket. The Blueshirts are playing some great hockey as of late (8-3-1 since Christmas) and the Capitals are not (3-4-4 since Christmas). With two tired teams there could be a lot of goals so I’m not sure I want either goalie, but there should be lots of Rangers in your lineups.

Good luck!

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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