Nascar
Tonight’s slate is particularly tough. It seems that DraftKings has basically reset pricing post-Four Nations break to levels that resemble the beginning of the season. Auston Matthews’ and Nathan MacKinnon’s prices have dropped ~$1k from where they were sitting before the league took off for the exhibition. That’s having the biggest impact on Colorado, who sit with a team total over 3.5 and by far the highest on the slate, despite their prices being quite low overall. It’s possible to fit MacKinnon with Makar and even get the whole COL powerplay without using all your salary. You will need to spend down everywhere else, but the point is that the Avs are too easy to play, and will probably be solid chalk in single entry DFS tournaments, if not all GPPs.
The Maple Leafs are a bit tougher because they don’t play a defenseman on their power play. That increases the overall cost of the 5-man stack, making it too cost prohibitive to jam the whole thing. Nevertheless, when using SaberSim they are coming quite often as 3-man and 4-mans early in the day. Toronto is the clear pivot off the Colorado chalk and may get some steam in their own right. The problem is that without those two teams the rest is a crapshoot of squads with team totals under 3.
The Rangers look to be the pivot off the pivot, and make some sense from a price standpoint. There are a whole lot of GTDs for the Rangers tonight, which makes it tough to know who to play early in the day. However, that also means that if you can wait till right before lock, some great value might open up. For one, their defensemen are going to have to eat extra minutes because Adam Fox is out, along with a GTD for K’Andre Miller. The same is the case for Chris Kreider. With Kreider out, the Rangers’ powerplay would become weaker, but on the other hand, it would also become cheaper. It’s not going to be too difficult to stack up the Rangers and still play a stud or two. That and the ownership break for the GTDs adds a lot of appeal to this team on tonight’s slate.
I think this analysis holds for both FanDuel and DraftKings. The pricing dynamics are close enough, and the Colorado chalk is coming in on both sites. That means that a fade is in order, especially in larger field tournaments where you’ll need some serious leverage to get a takedown. Good luck!
