Daily Fantasy Hockey DFS Value Update – January 23

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.

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Games are color-coded as follows:

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

Carolina Hurricanes at Buffalo Sabres

A postponed game on Tuesday got pushed to last night for Carolina (a 3-2 win) which means tonight is back-to-back games on the road for the Hurricanes and they are 0-1-1 in such situations already this year. There are some bright spots for Carolina of late, though: Alex Semin has four goals in his last three games; Eric Staal has five points in his last three games; Anton Khudobin has not allowed more than three goals against in any of his 12 games so far this year. They’ll need all their horses to get a win tonight, though.

Buffalo has lost four in a row, all by a 4-3 margin and two of them in shootouts. Despite the losing streak, the scores indicate close games (even if the underlying numbers do not). This is still a team with Ryan Miller in net, so they have a chance to win on any given night. The outpouring of goals has to be a welcome sight, though, as it’s the first time all season this team has gone four straight games with at least three goals. Over that stretch, their power play is 4-for-17, another marked improvement.

This is the first meeting of the year between the two teams but it shouldn’t surprise anyone if this is fairly low-scoring; these two teams have combined for just 20 goals over their previous respective four games each.

One Buffalo player to look for is Drew Stafford. Stafford is a perennial 20-goal scorer who had fallen on hard times for most of the year but has three goals in his last two games.

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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