3 NHL FanDuel Studs to Target on Friday 4/23/21

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.

Friday night brings us a five-game NHL DFS slate. Let's hunt for some studs!

Mika Zibanejad, Center, New York Rangers

FanDuel Salary: $7,900

It is a rare slate without Auston Matthews, Nathan MacKinnon, or Connor McDavid. However, Mika Zibanejad plays the Philadelphia Flyers again on Friday night. He had another assist, four shots on goal, and four scoring chances on Wednesday night.

The center has 11 real-world points in his last eight games and has three or more shots along with five or more shot attempts in three straight contests. The Flyers come in with one of the worst road penalty kills on the slate, ranking 30th at 74.3%.

Philadelphia never fully recovered from the departure...err...early retirement of Matt Niskanen. The Flyers' defense fell hard and flat in March allowing well over four goals per game. April has been a little better but they still yield nearly 3.5 goals per contest. Even Adam Fox ($5,900) and Artemi Panarin ($8,400) can be used as a power-play stack of sorts.

Friday features Sean Couturier ($6,900) as a possible alternative as the New York Rangers are also capable of giving up three or more goals with ease.

Brad Marchand, Wing, Boston Bruins

FanDuel Salary: $8,100

Brad Marchand plays the Buffalo Sabres again on Friday after delivering yet another 15-plus point FanDuel performance. That is three such efforts in a row. The funny thing was Marchand played just 16 minutes and only had one shot on goal with two scoring chances. He made both count with a goal and an assist.

Quietly, Marchand has six goals and three assists in his previous five games. That includes a short-handed assist as well. The Boston Bruins' winger is one of the best in the game when it comes to turning short-handed situations into opportunities for more offense.

The Boston forward expects to enjoy quite a few scoring chances versus a Buffalo team who allowed four more goals to the Bruins on Thursday night. That included two again from the top line which has been a major thorn in Buffalo's side for several years.

The small slate features a few alternatives including Alex DeBrincat ($7,200) from the Chicago Blackhawks against a bottom-five penalty kill in the Nashville Predators. Also, Kirill Kaprizov ($6,500) and the Minnesota Wild are on quite a run and go up against the Los Angeles Kings who allow 31.2 shots per game and nearly three goals against at home.

Ivan Provorov, Defenseman, Philadelphia Flyers

FanDuel Salary: $4,800

Smaller slates closer to the playoffs often mean taking more risks. The fact that Ivan Provorov is under $5,000 is significant. He is a player capable of producing 15-20 FanDuel points on any night. He connected for a couple of assists, five shots, and a blocked shot versus the Rangers on Wednesday night.

With New York playing the New Jersey Devils last week, they developed and showed some rather bad habits in Games 3 and 4 of that series. Provorov should be able to get several shots through a defense that plays a little lackadaisical, especially at home.

Roman Josi ($6,700) of the Nashville Predators could be in for another high-scoring affair against the Chicago Blackhawks on Friday night. Like Nashville, Chicago has a bottom-five penalty kill, so there should be plenty of chances via special teams.

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.