Daily Fantasy Hockey DFS Value Update – March 17

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.

Minnesota Wild at Boston Bruins

Minnesota lost in the shootout for the third time in four games on Saturday night and now have just one win in their last five. This team has played seven, one-goal games in a row and only one of those seven games had more than six total goals scored. All these close low-scoring games are bad for DFS because they aren’t providing a large market of goals (so player upside is limited) and a bounce one way or the other can mean the difference between a win and a loss for goaltender Darcy Kuemper. One aspect where they have been slacking is the penalty kill which has managed a 69.2-percent efficiency in their last five games.

Boston is the hottest team in the NHL right now with eight straight wins and only one of them coming in overtime or a shootout. The most impressive aspect of this streak is that five of those eight games have been wins by three goals or more. They’ve also averaged four goals for per game over those eight games as well. Granted, the competition hasn’t been great – Florida twice, Washington, Montreal, Phoenix, Carolina and Tampa Bay twice – but it has been impressive nonetheless.

This game has all the signs of a low-scoring game so I’ll be pretty careful about which players I take out of this game. Minnesota has some pretty good value plays on their side of the puck but I’m not sure how many goals they’ll manage.

All said, I will probably take a couple of skaters off the Bruins for my 50/50s and leave both goaltenders alone.

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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