Daily Fantasy Hockey DFS Value Update – March 12

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 DraftStreet 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 stack for GPPs. Yellow means targets for cash games. Red means value plays only.

Boston Bruins at Montreal Canadiens

Boston comes into the Bell Centre tonight with five straight wins and an 8-1-2 mark in their last 11 dating back to before the Sochi Olympics. The Bruins have also managed at least 54-percent possession in eight of their last ten games, or elite numbers in 80-percent of their most recent games. During that 8-1-2 stretch, the team has a 26.7-percent efficiency on the power play and the penalty kill is at 85.7-percent. The team has averaged 3.9 goals for per game and 2.2 against over that stretch as well. In other words, this Boston team is absolutely rolling right now on all fronts.

Montreal is coming home from the California trip where the team went 1-3-0 and managed all of six goals in those four games. There’s not a lot of shame in that record against those teams. In the eight games before that trip, the Habs did manage to go 5-1-2 so it’s not been a terrible run of late. A big problem is that this team is just 1-for-18 over their last four games on the power play. When playing an elite team like the Bruins, opportunities like power plays cannot be squandered.

These two teams met on January 30^th and the result was a 4-1 Habs win. It was actually a hard-fought game both ways and the Habs got a marvelous goaltending performance from Peter Budaj. The Habs will need another performance like that from Budaj to have a chance tonight. I think this is a tight game with Boston coming out on top. I will avoid both goalies in this game and focus on a few value plays.

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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