Daily Fantasy Hockey DFS Value Update – February 28

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 DraftStreet values). Reminder: check Left Wing Lock for up-to-the-minute information on starting goalies.

Games are color-coded as follows:

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

San Jose Sharks at Buffalo Sabres

San Jose went into Philadelphia last night and lit them up for seven goals, five of them from Joe Pavelski and Logan Couture. This team is three lines deep when healthy and they are almost there. The problem is last night they were facing Steve Mason (who was pulled), tonight they get Ryan Miller. San Jose is 4-2 on back-to-backs this year but it’s curious who those four wins are against: two shootout wins, Edmonton and Ottawa. It seems like even in a bad team situation, they’re still able to beat the teams that they should beat. In those four wins, they’ve only given up eight total goals against so they don’t really fall apart defensively in these situations.

Buffalo will be playing their third game in four days coming off the break tonight and they won the first two over Carolina and Boston. They were also outshot by 27 shots total in those two games so it’s not like they’re stymieing their opponents, they’re getting excellent goaltending. One thing Buffalo has done in their two games is score a power play goal in each of them. I fully expect that streak to come to a rest tonight.

These two teams met in San Jose back in November and the Sabres took a 5-4 shootout win. They also gave up 51 shots against. If anything remotely like that happens again here tonight, Buffalo is in a lot of trouble.

Typically, I’m a fan of betting against the team that is playing on back to back nights but this isn’t a good time to do that. I might not stack the Sharks outright, but I won’t have any Sabres in any of my lineups unless it’s really the only option I have to fit a specific salary limit.

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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