Happy Saturday, Razzballers! We’ve officially entered 2023! Our NHL teams are headed to the halfway point in the season with most sitting at or around the 40 game mark. If we’re looking to stack one team for today, we can’t go wrong with a squad that has 30 wins in 38 games. Whether it’s goal scoring, shots on goal, or the potential for a healthy FPTS total in goalie stats, look no further than the Boston Bruins. The B’s are firing on all cylinders and come Marchand…er, marching in with the reunion of an old trio this week.
Brad Marchand (DK: $7,000) is one of the main pieces of the reunited ‘Perfection Line’. Now that Jake DeBrusk is out for four weeks with a broken fibula, the elite first line from last year has been reformed with David Pastrnak slotting back in alongside his old buddies. I nearly went with Pasta today, but his $9,200 price tag took up too much cap space compared to Marchand’s $7,000 without much of a difference in potential production. 33 points in 30 games and a 5 game point streak qualifies Marchand as a chalk-ish winger for us today.
Our $50,000 DraftKings lineup will be for that main slate of 7 games. We’ll draw from all of these that start at 7:00 PM ET with Seattle at Ottawa and end with the final match of the night at 10:30 PM ET – Boston at San Jose.
Let’s get to it!
C – Connor McDavid, DK: $9,300 – The King. There isn’t much to say about the best player in the world, but 75 points in 40 games certainly is a good start. Being on pace to score more than 150 points this year would put McDavid in a pretty exclusive group. A few buddies and I talked about that piece of trivia this week. Without ‘The Google’, can you name the 5 players that have had 150 or more points in one NHL season? The first two are easy, but the other three might be a bit tougher to guess! Leave your 5 names in the comments and I’ll tell you which three I got right (and which ones I whiffed on).
C – Matty Beniers, DK: $4,500 – Beniers is the front runner for rookie of the year, and one could argue that the race isn’t close. Beniers leads rookies with 28 points in 37 games and is getting the second highest TOI (17:28) among first year forwards. I’ll take this 2C on the road in Ottawa today and hope that he can hook up with one of our defencemen below for a few FPTS.
W – Mitch Marner, DK: $6,200 -Similar to our Marchand pick above, this is a winger that plays in a high octane offense but somehow comes in significantly cheaper than his teammates. Marner’s $6,200 tag is $1K less than William Nylander, but the former has points in 6 of his last 7 games and 44 points in 39 GP. Yes, Nylander plays equal strength minutes with Matthews, but they’re all on PP1 together. It’s worth the price cut with Marner today.
W – Trent Frederic, DK: $2,700 – Talk about a guy being glad to see a new coach! I mentioned it last week with Nick Foligno, but there were more than a couple of Bruins that seemed to respond well to Jim Montgomery when he came to Massachusetts (see : DeBrusk, Jake and Krejci, David). Frederic has found chemistry on the third line this year with Charlie Coyle and Taylor Hall. Thursday night in LA, Frederic fought Brendan Lemieux and scored two goals. He’s only getting around 13:50 a game, but those minutes have been much more lively and energy filled than they have been in years past.
D – Sean Durzi, DK: $4,400 – The Hobbit fan in me always hears a scratchy voice when someone says this guy’s last name. “Durzi or dursn’t he!?”. Well, the Kings rearguard isn’t as possessive as that spelunking Gollum with just 13 takeaways in 39 GP, but he’s certainly good at accumulating those ‘precious’ FPTS in DFS. He’s seeing both second line even strength duty and PP2 time. He’s at or near 20 minutes per game over his last 10, and he scored Thursday night. Not a bad call at this price point today. He might even ‘bag in’ another goal!
D – Vince Dunn, DK: $3,900 – It was like this in our MLB DFS this year…some players just didn’t seem to get the credit they should have gotten and were continually underpriced. I’ve written up Vince Dunn before, and his $3,900 tag makes him an even better play than Durzi ahead of him. 27 PTS in 39 GP? +15? Over 23:00 TOI? Top line duty for 5-on-5 and PP time? Three points in his last game and 6 PTS In his last 4GP? I guess it’s a good thing for us if this guy keeps getting mispriced. Lock him in.
G – Linus Ullmark, DK: $8,500 – Back to back weeks of recommendations with Ullmark here, even though the Bruins pivoted to Swayman last week (and lost in OT to the Sabres). Ullmark is the Bruins all star representative and even though they have some great players, it’s hard to argue with the choice. The numbers are really video game-esque : 21-1-0, 1.86 GAA, .939 SV%, 2 SO. Wow. Ride this wave as long as it’s high. Swayman playing Thursday in L.A. should only make it more obvious that Ullmark gets this one.
UTIL – Charlie Coyle, DK: $3,500 – This might be a bit of a stretch because of the recent line shakeup, but Coyle is getting some FPTS in a supporting role at a decent price. He’s not leading the league in hits, shots, or blocks but is averaging around 6-8 FPTS per game over the last month chipping in with all of those categories. At San Jose, he should get some chances to contribute.
Here’s the three moneyline picks for the week too…
The Sea Bass : (Favorite)
The Bruins (-245) against the Sharks aren’t exactly a shocker of a pick as a favorite today, but a top offense against a team that is 4-10-6 at home this year is a pretty solid choice. It’s not a reach to predict an easy win here.
The Happy Gilmore : (Underdog)
This one feels like a bit of a cheat. Somehow as of late last night Buffalo was still an underdog at home (+105) to Minnesota. Sure the 22-13-2 Wild are nothing to laugh at, but the Sabres are 7-2-1 in their last 10. That top line, (led by Tage Thompson), has been on an absolute heater. Seems like a simple bet today.
The Claude Lemieux : (Turtle/Flop)
Although I’d be glad to bet that Trent Frederic would beat up Brendan’s dad too, our Claude Lemieux flop of the day has to be St. Louis (-150) at Montreal. The Habs are 30th in goals scored and 29th in goals against, but St Louis isn’t exactly filled with Brett Hull or Al MacInnis types these days either. Montreal might not blow them out of the water, but the Blues look like a shaky favorite tonight.
That’s it for this week! I hope you enjoyed it. If you have any comments or questions, feel free to leave them below or give me a shout @MarmosDad.
