3 NHL FanDuel Studs to Target on Wednesday 12/1/21
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.
Wednesday night brings us six more games on the NHL slate. It is time to hunt for more studs!
Mika Zibanejad, Center, New York Rangers
FanDuel Salary: $7,200
Mika Zibanejad had an incredible run of games against the Philadelphia Flyers last season.
The center has 16 real-world points in 20 games this season. The pivot, though, has just 4 goals on 50 shots. That 8% shooting percentage is almost 5% below his career average of 12.9%. There tends to be this feeling that positive regression may come at the perfect time.
Our model projects New York to score 3.83 goals, which is possible for the Rangers on Wednesday night. There is a real chance that New York could even score four-plus goals against the always-struggling Carter Hart.
Ryan Strome and Chris Kreider are great corollary options to pair with Zibanejad when backing the boys in blue.
Max Pacioretty, Wing, Vegas Golden Knights
FanDuel Salary: $8,000
The Vegas Golden Knights garner a great matchup against an unrested Anaheim Ducks team on Wednesday night.
Max Pacioretty shoots the puck often (22 shots on goal in just four games) and many of those shots possess some danger (20 scoring chances). Pacioretty has five real-world points after being out for most of the 2021-22 season so far due to injury.
The Ducks may not have Ryan Getzlaf in the lineup, and that would leave a defensive void down the middle that Pacioretty could exploit as well.
Pacioretty might be slightly under-salaried returning from injury so recently, and he can absolutely turn his shot volume into a goal on Wednesday night against the lowly Ducks.
Cale Makar, Defenseman, Colorado Avalanche
FanDuel Salary: $7,200
The highest-salaried blueline options on Wednesday night rule.
Cale Makar has been tremendous beyond words and keeps pumping in goals as a blue-liner (eight in the last six games).
Makar has 48 shots on goal total this season, but 24 of those shots have come in his last five games. On a slate with lower shot-volume defensemen across the top, Makar sticks out quite a bit with that shot average.
The Colorado Avalanche always have the potential to exceed offensive expectations, and Toronto allows the seventh-most Corsi For (1029) in the NHL. This could be a wild game.
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.
