3 NHL FanDuel Studs to Target on Thursday 6/3/21
In any daily fantasy lineup, 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 from paying up in sports like NBA or NFL. Someone can be one of the highest salaried players at his position and 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.
Thursday night brings us two more games on the NHL DFS playoff slate. Let's take a look at a few studs.
Sebastian Aho, Center, Carolina Hurricanes
FanDuel Salary: $7,900
At some point, Sebastian Aho will break through against the Tampa Bay Lightning.
The Carolina center has had seven scoring chances but only four shots on goal in the first two games of this Round 2 series. Andrei Vasilevskiy has gotten into the heads of some Carolina players but Aho has had him beat on a few occasions. He even hit a post in Game 1.
The one thing that might help Aho tonight is that Tampa Bay has a tendency to relax a bit at home. They lost to Florida in Game 3, and again, Carolina has been close in this series. Aho has had a few high-danger chances. He should have some in Game 3 also.
Brayden Point ($7,200) and Patrice Bergeron ($7,700) are always good alternatives on Thursday night. Bergeron is not even the highest-salaried center ($7,700) on the slate for Boston.
Nikita Kucherov, Wing, Tampa Bay Lightning
FanDuel Salary: $8,000
Nikita Kucherov has 3 goals and 12 points in his last eight games for Tampa Bay. He also has five power-play points and three goals on the man advantage. It is that ability to thrive on the power-play alone that causes optimism here.
Also, Tampa Bay averages more than 3.5 goals a game at home. They tend to relax a little bit defensively, which should add to the scoring (six goals combined by the two teams so far). The growing sense is that at some point, the goals will come.
Brad Marchand ($8,300) and David Pastrnak ($7,900) are the usual alternatives here as the New York Islanders have had issues with the Boston top line. However, Anthony Beauvillier ($6,700) has been a force for New York with real-world points in six straight contests.
Charlie McAvoy, Defenseman, Boston Bruins
FanDuel Salary: $6,000
This is a risky stud pick because of the possibility of Carolina and Tampa Bay scoring more on Thursday night.
Charlie McAvoy has a goal and an assist so far against the New York Islanders, and he could have more. He has averaged three scoring chances in each game and it seems that the chances increase in danger as the games go on. His assist potential is high, as McAvoy has six in seven playoff games so far. Also, the defenseman can block shots in bunches occasionally. He had six in Game 5 against the Washington Capitals.
After McAvoy, it is either Dougie Hamilton's ($6,300) shot potential or Victor Hedman and his ability to get assists. Hedman leads the fray in salary at $6,600.
Chris Wassel is not a FanDuel employee. In addition to providing DFS gameplay advice, Chris Wassel also participates in DFS contests on FanDuel using his personal account, username chriswassel. 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.
