Washington Capitals Vs. Vancouver Canucks


The NHL has given us only one game this Sunday, so that means we are going to be playing a Showdown slate. It can be difficult to build these kinds of lineups, but we’ll look at some general rules to follow, and target some players that should have some success tonight.

Let’s start with the Washington Capitals, specifically their top line of Alex Ovechkin, Evgeny Kuznetsov and T.J. Oshie. You’ll want to have someone in the captain spot who’s going to generate fantasy points without having to score goals, and Ovechkin is the best option. He’s going to set your lineup back, but he’s definitely worth it.

If Oshie does play today, he’s another player to consider. Seeing minutes on the top line is key, and combine that with the added power play time, he’s in a prime spot.

If we are playing Ovechkin in the captain spot, we’ll need to find some value. Aliaksei Protas played on the second line last night, and was able to register an assist. He’s $2K on DraftKings, and has to do very little in order to hit value. He could easily give us a zero, but the risk seems worth the reward.

On the back end, John Carlson is obviously a good play, but Justin Schultz is where we should be focusing our attention. He’s $4K on DK and is seeing time on the second power play unit. Deciding which player to play will come down to how much budget you have to work with. If salary isn’t an issue, Carlson is the best way to go.

On the Canucks side, there are some new line combinations that may provide us with a lot of value.

Let’s start with their new top line of Elias Pettersson, Bo Horvat and Conor Garland. Moving EP40 to the wing is going to take some responsibility off of him, and Garland can focus on getting the puck to the net. This line could be tasked with having to slow down Washington’s top line, but let’s not pretend like Ovi and the gang are great at playing defence. There could be a lot of room out there for Vancouver’s top line to work with.

Their second line of Tanner Pearson, J.T. Miller and Brock Boeser is also a line to consider. Miller is a great player, but he just hasn’t played well over the last ten games. As for Boeser, he hit the double bonus on DK yesterday afternoon (five shots on goals and four blocked shots), and while it’s nice to see him do that, he’s not going to repeat that success tonight. Before yesterday’s game, he had one blocked shot in nine games. 

Looking at both lines, I would focus my attention on building around the top power play, something along the lines of Horvat and Miller. We need to focus on players who take shots on goal, and outside of those two, the rest of them have been very inconsistent. If you want to stack a line, the top line is where I would focus my attention.

On the blueline, Quinn Hughes is going to be popular, but he’s not doing enough to earn his price tag. I’d rather invest in Oliver Ekman-Larsson, who isn’t going to give you much offensively, but in the last five games, he’s blocked three shots in one game twice, and even finished with five shots on goal. He has offence to his game, but it’s the defensive aspect that we are looking at here in relation to his price tag. I expect him to be on the ice when Ovechkin jumps over the boards, and if he can get in the way of a few shots, that may be enough to hit value.

As always, I’m not going to focus on any goalies. Both teams are playing back-to-back games, and Vegas has the game total set to 6.0. I think we see a lot of goals in this game, so there’s no reason to pay a premium at the position for only a couple of fantasy points.