Nascar
We’re back to the typical small Wednesday slates based on the NHL’s unbalanced- and really non-DFS friendly- schedule. That said, there’s always an angle or way to look at the slate for the NHL DFS diehards. I’m going to go over the top stacks for DraftKings and FanDuel using SaberSim’s (SS) model.
Per usual, the SS model highly prefers five man stacks as it seems to give more weight to the power play upside of teams than their even strength. If we look at the SS data, we see that the correlation is definitely stronger for skaters that skate together on the even strength, however the ceiling correlation is higher for the power play. In other words, the five man power play stacks (or even 6) do a whole lot more for getting us to the outlier outcomes we need to win GPPs. That’s why we see the highest ROI, even on small slates like todays, in onslaughts. The top ROI stack in the early afternoon in SaberSim is Buffalo. They are priced right and you can get a relatively low-owned team in a solid spot against a middling Detroit squad. Even better, the BUF-DET matchup rates to have the highest pace of any game on the slate.
After the Sabres (not to be confused with SaberSim), the distribution of top stacks is pretty flat. Montreal is coming up as the next highest team after the Sabres on DraftKings and on FanDuel. The Habs’ always make intuitive sense to me because their EV1 correlates fully on their power play with Slafkovisky-Caufield-Suzuki. The latter, Suzuki, tends to get the most ice time and play with both PP1 and PP2, which we discussed in yesterday’s video. The others are well correlated and the price is right against a pretty weak Seattle club. If Montreal can repeat the performance they had last night against a solid Vancouver defense, it might be just enough to get there on a small slate like tonight’s.
Finally, if you’re looking for prop bets, consider heading back to Buffalo for whoever is in net. The saves market for whoever is in net should be set around 26-27 saves, but with the pace of play and Detroit’s penchant for putting up low-danger, or weak shots (they had 50+ in their last game) the saves market could look good for Buffalo’s goalkeeper. Right now, that’s looking like it will be Ukka-Pekka Luukkonnen, but don’t rule out James Reimer getting the start. The Paydirt model is liking it either way, and hopefully we stay hot after hitting Ullmark’s over against Detroit on Monday.
