3 NHL Studs to Target on 12/2/19

Spending up in any Daily Fantasy lineup is how to get the superstars and the highest upside players in your lineup. In NHL DFS, it’s different than paying up in sports like NBA or NFL. Someone can be one of the highest-priced players at his position a put up a total dud of a performance, and paying that much for him would be a huge mistake. Let’s make sure we are paying up in the right spots when building our lineups tonight.

We ease into the new week with a five-game slate that has some interesting angles for studs to spend our salary on. So let's take a look at where it makes the most sense to pay up tonight.

Jack Eichel, Center, Buffalo Sabres

FanDuel Price: $8,400

The center position is headlined by Jack Eichel tonight, who has numberFire's highest projection of fantasy points on the slate tonight. Eichel has been hot lately, with eight goals and 16 points in his last ten games. Overall, he is seventh in the league in points and goals. He also is seventh in shots on goal.

When Eichel's Buffalo Sabres take on the New Jersey Devils tonight, they will be -125 favorites, according to . That is rare for a Buffalo team that struggled in the month of November, going 3-8-3 in the season's second month. This speaks to how bad the Devils have been, allowing the third-most goals per 60 minutes, at 3.43, per Natural Stat Trick. The Sabres are implied to score 3.10, which is the third most on the slate. While home/road splits are not the most predictive metric that we can look at, it's worth noting that Eichel has 12 goals in 13 home games, and just four goals on the road this season. Eichel is the recommended spend up on tonight's slate.

Patrick Kane, Wing, Chicago Blackhawks

FanDuel Price: $8,600

Patrick Kane has gotten back to his great form of last season, now with a point in 15 straight games. He had a 20 game point streak last season, and a 26 game streak in 2015, so he tends to get points in bunches. This has obviously led to a lot of good fantasy games during this streak, with no less than 11.2 FanDuel points in this stretch. He is shooting the puck more in the last ten games, averaging 4.5 shots on goal as opposed to the just over three he averaged in the first 16.

The Chicago Blackhawks are underdogs at home against the defending champion St. Louis Blues. Normally, avoiding matchups against the Blues is the way to go because they are so stellar defensively. This is reflected in the Blackhawks' low implied team goal total of just 2.63. However, this is a good spot to pay up for a player who has been on a tear, and could be lower owned than normal given the matchup. Kane can get it going really against anyone, so playing him at lower ownership is a good thing for tournaments.

Mark Stone, Wing, Vegas Golden Knights

FanDuel Price: $7,200

The second-highest player in our projections behind Jack Eichel is Mark Stone of the Vegas Golden Knights. They will be at Madison Square Garden to face the New York Rangers, with the highest team total on the slate at 3.45. Stone hasn't been scoring at an elite rate, but he has been driving the play forward in his typical fashion with a 55% Corsi at five on five.

Tonight, the Golden Knights should dominate the Corsi battle as the Rangers are the worse Corsi team in the entire league, with just 42% of the shot attempts going in a positive direction for them. Stone will be on a line with Paul Stastny and Max Pacioretty, two other players who have been able to have good possession numbers this season. That line could have a field day tonight, and Stone could be overlooked by game log watchers who don't see massive fantasy point outputs in recent games. He is a good play in all formats tonight.

Nicholas Vazquez is not a FanDuel employee. In addition to providing DFS gameplay advice, Nicholas Vazquez also participates in DFS contests on FanDuel using his personal account, username hbyanksman. While the strategies and player selections recommended in his articles are his/her personal views, he/she may deploy different strategies and player selections when entering contests with his/her personal account. The views expressed in his/her articles are the author’s alone and do not necessarily reflect the views of FanDuel.