Trade season is finally upon us. Ben Chiarot has moved to the Florida Panthers to beef up their blue line, Calle Jarnkrok has been reunited with his cousin Elias Lindholm in Calgary, and a few other minors moves have gotten the frenzy started. Calgary may be the biggest winner in all of this. Not only are the cousins going to be playing with each other but their goalie Jakob Markstrom is from the same remote city in Sweden. An already tight team just got tighter.
We will be starting our focus today on the Toronto Maple Leafs vs Carolina Hurricanes game. The Leafs new goalie Eric Kallgren got a huge shutout in his first NHL start and that is incredibly rare. Carolina will be firing on all cylinders to take him down a notch. On top of that, Toronto’s best scorer Auston Matthews is out one more game for his suspension.
Here’s a stormy lineup For DFS Hockey 3/17/22 (using DraftKings Values)
| Center | S. Aho | $7,600 |
| Center | ||
| Wing | A. Svechnikov | $7,200 |
| Wing | ||
| Wing | ||
| Defense | ||
| Defense | ||
| Goalie | F. Andersen | $7,400 |
| Utility |
Freddie Andersen has one more pertinent piece of information you should know about going into this tilt. He used to be a Leaf. Those games are very meaningful for most players and we know he will rise to the occasion. His team knows the stakes too and will not be letting him down.
Sebastian Aho is cruising along at top speed and having a blast doing it. He is currently on a three game goal streak and is well over a point per game this season. He is licking his lips at the prospect of firing on a rookie goalie and taking down one of the leagues top teams.
Accompanying Aho is Andrei Svechnikov. It seems less known that he is one of the best power forwards in the league because he is known for scoring, but he also hits like a freight train. We remember a couple years ago when he bit off more than he could chew and tried to take down Alex Ovechkin. That did not go well for him. That is water under the bridge and he is building himself an epic career.
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• A top tier defender without paying top tier prices
• A slightly cheaper goalie up against a team that does not have defenders
• A fourth line player was traded yesterday to somewhere where he may ascend to the second line for only $2,500
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We are not going to be able to afford Roman Josi today but we have some solid picks in his stead. Aaron Ekblad and the Florida Panthers are facing a faltering Golden Knights team who is currently playing Goalie Roulette. The Panthers will be taking full advantage of that and Ekblad will be getting some juicy power play time.
Without going too cheap on your second defensemen, we like both Tyson Barrie and Torey Krugtoday. We are not totally sure why we are feeling the Blues today but we might be tossing Krug in the pile. He is leading the St. Louis power play admirably with two PP assists in his last two games. Tyson Barrie is a sneaky pick because it looks like he took power play one time back from Evan Bouchard, so his stock is rising while his price is not.
The other Blue we are looking at is Brandon Saad. He is dirt cheap and is up on the first line with Ryan O’Reilly and David Perron. That can be a lethal line. For a couple hundred dollars more you can have Anthony Mantha who missed a lot of time this season but earned himself 19 minutes of ice time and a goal in his last outing. He was a big get for the Capitals and his setup man Nicklas Backstrom is second to none in the ability to get the puck on his teammates stick.
Backstrom is a crazy cheap center but you could probably afford the one ahead of him, Evgeni Kuznetsov. Kuzie is setting up Alex Ovechkin which has a much higher chance of putting one past the opposing netminder. There are a few other nice choices in the $5,000 range and we are keeping tabs on Bo Horvat and Tomas Hertl. Hertl just signed a huge $8Mx8 year contract which has most of the league a little confused. Hertl is a great player, but he is already pushing 30 years old and they already have some of those aging contracts that do not look great. He is still good right now and is facing a Kings defense that is all AHL players at this point. The Sharks should pull out a win tonight.
One extra note there is that James Reimer is back from injury and if you need to pinch a few more pennies, then he is poised for a big win. We started the day looking to go after Cal Petersen and the Kings, but when we remembered how beat up their defensive corp was, we knew we had to shelve the idea.
Frank Vatrano was always deployed as a bottom six winger in Florida but just got traded to the NY Rangers who are in desperate need of a middle six guy. Vatrano is a talented goal scorer and we have always maintained that he deserved more minutes. His even strength goals for numbers the last couple years were very highly ranked. This is a big moment for him.
We are back to Thirsty Thursday and it has been a heck of a week. Did you take all of our shot callers and ballers yesterday? Chabot had 5 shots and an assist before the end of the first. Unfortunately, it sounds like he sustained a broken hand which means he is done for most of the rest of the season. Poor guy. Daily content can be found on Twitter (@FantasyDFSX) and we can be found in front of the boob tube, watching grown men hit each other and shoot rubber at each other. Talk to you soon, have a good one.
