Daily Fantasy Hockey Picks – March 9

Our daily fantasy hockey lineup scored 41.90 points at FanDuel last night. We went 3-0 in head-to-head matchups and made it in the money in the one 50/50 I entered. Our big player was Matt Duchene who came through with 12.6 fantasy points. My strategy to go cheap at goaltender paid off again as Robin Lehner gave us 7.6 fantasy points. My prediction of an Evander Kane breakout didn’t come to fruition as he only gave us 0.4 fantasy points.

Daily fantasy gaming does strange things to the brain. Two nights ago I was able to sleep because I felt the lineup was respectable and I didn’t shame myself. Last night I couldn’t sleep because my lineup did well and I still could not stop questioning myself for the last second tinkering that hurt us a little. It’s the burden we bear as daily fantasy gamers. We always hear in daily fantasy gaming that every day we get a new chance to draft a new lineup. It’s true. But it also gives us a year’s worth of questions crammed into one wonderful/horrific night.

This is my wonderful/horrific lineup for today’s games at FanDuel:

LW: Brad Marchand $6,900—I like Marchand not only because he’s been scoring at a nice clip but because I can see him getting into a few minor scraps in this one. Marchand isn’t a guy who will get into a full-blown fight—but a goal and a minor penalty are reasonable expectations in this one.

LW: Jiri Tlusty $7,100—He has three goals in his past four games.

RW: Beau Bennett $3,400—I’m going extreme risk here. Bennet played with Malkin and Neal on Thursday so his value rests solely with that line combo. Check his status before the game.

RW: Chris Stewart $5,500—Stewart has five points in his past two games. He has six shots and is a plus-4 over that time.

C: Sidney Crosby $9,900

C: Steven Stamkos $9,100

D: John Carlson $4,500—As long as he’s on the first power play unit with Alexander Ovechkin I’ll keep playing him.

D: Dougie Hamilton $4,500—His rising price tag makes him a little less exciting pick—but he still produces and sees power play time. I almost don’t consider him a “value” anymore since he can hurt your plus/minus but he’s still one of the best options at this price.

G: Jake Allen $3,300—You know it by now, I can’t resist these cheap goaltenders. A goalie at $3,300 doesn’t even give me a chance to say no. Check on his status before game time.

Notes: This lineup puts a lot weight on the performances of two players (Stamkos/Crosby). I usually hate that strategy but I think the additional players in the lineup are solid. If you wanted to go a different route you could sub in Jake Muzzin at defense for Hamilton. Muzzin is only $4,000 and has looked good recently. Nazim Kadri is $6,600 and has six goals in four games. If you took out Crosby and put Kadri in the lineup you could free up some cap space if you aren’t comfortable with the Bennett pick. Tyler Seguin would be my first choice to replace Bennett. The lineup would then look like this:

Tom Fitzgerald

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