This article is part of our FanDuel NHL series.
Saturday's main NHL slate begins at 7:00 PM Eastern time and features eight games. Below, you'll find an overview of the matchups and suggested options for crafting an effective lineup.
SLATE PREVIEW
The headline-grabbing game here is the Blues-Bruins Stanley Cup Final rematch, but there are better sources of value to be found here, such as the the Flames-Jets battle in Western Canada and a matchup of bottom-feeders where one of Los Angeles or Minnesota has to come out on top. Other situations worth heavy monitoring are the potentially lopsided Ducks-Avalanche clash in Colorado and what could be a high-scoring Predators-Lightning affair.
GOALIES
Pavel Francouz ($7,600) will get the call in net for this second leg of Colorado's back-to-back. The backup has won his first two starts with a 1.95 GAA and .951 save percentage, while the visiting Ducks sport a bottom-three offense at 2.27 goals per game.
If you're not yet sold on Francouz, Matt Murray ($8,700) is your chalk option in net. He'll be on the road against the league-worst Stars offense (2.08 goals per game).
An against-the-grain option capable of paying massive dividends is the other goaltender in the Penguins-Stars game. Ben Bishop ($8,500) has set aside 67 of 69 shots in his last two games, and he now has a 2.38 GAA and .920 save percentage after posting 1.98 and .934 marks last season. Meanwhile, the Penguins come into this one having dropped three in a row while mustering a combined four goals in those games.
VALUE PLAYS/ONE-OFFS
Anze Kopitar ($7,700) stands head and shoulders above his teammates offensively, as the center's 4-7-11 line through 10 games has him on pace to eclipse a point per game for the second time in the last three seasons. With his Kings visiting a Wild team that's one of the few looking up at Los Angeles in the standings, this is an ideal time to deploy Kopitar.
With Mikko Rantanen (lower body) unavailable, J.T. Compher ($4,600) is the lucky man filling the third spot on a line with Gabriel Landeskog and Nathan MacKinnon. Ducks netminder John Gibson will do all he can to keep this one competitive, but Colorado's top line will get opportunities galore against the overmatched visitors.
The buy-low window on Flyers winger Claude Giroux ($7,500) is rapidly closing. He couldn't buy a goal to start the year but finally broke through Thursday against the Blackhawks and has 12 shots over his last three games to boot. Things should only get better moving forward considering Giroux logged 187 points over the previous two seasons but still has only five through eight games, and a visit from a Blue Jackets team that's been outscored 32-26 through 10 games presents a great opportunity for Giroux to keep building momentum.
Brendan Gallagher ($7,200) is on pace to eclipse 30 goals for a third consecutive season, as he's lit the lamp four times on his team-leading 38 shots and has five assists to boot through 10 games. The skilled pest should be at his best in a rivalry game against a visiting Maple Leafs team that's playing its second game in as many nights and ranks among the league's 10 most generous teams in goals allowed per game.
FORWARD LINE STACKS
Flames at Jets
Sean Monahan (C - $7,100), Johnny Gaudreau (W - $7,200), Elias Lindholm (W - $6,000)
Monahan had 34 goals and 82 points in 78 games last season, but he has just two goals and seven points through 12 contests this year. That drop can be traced to bad shooting luck, as Monahan leads the team with 35 shots on goal but has converted just 5.7 percent. That luck is due to turn around considering he's never finished below 13.6 percent in six previous NHL seasons. Gaudreau also hasn't quite heated up yet, with just nine points on the heels of a 99-point season. Lindholm has a team-best six goals, but even he's underperforming expectations with eight points after recording 78 last season. This line is due for a collective breakout, and that breakout might just come against a defensively challenged Jets team that's been outscored 36-28 through 11 games, giving up at least four goals on five occasions and killing off a league-low 63.6 percent of opposing power plays.
Wild vs. Kings
Mikko Koivu (C - $4,800), Zach Parise (W - $5,500), Jason Zucker (W - $4,700)
The league's second-weakest force meets its lightest object in Minnesota, as the Wild's 2.10 goals per game top only Dallas' 2.08, while the Kings are letting in a league-high 3.90 goals per game. Minnesota's buy-low candidates up front won't get a better opportunity to snap out of their offensive stupor, so locking them in here could pay off. Koivu has averaged fewer than 0.6 points per game only once since his rookie campaign, and he has just four through 10 games. Parise and Zucker share the team lead for goals by forwards at three apiece. Both wingers topped 20 goals last season and have eclipsed 30 previously in their respective careers.
Lightning vs. Predators
Anthony Cirelli (C - $4,500), Nikita Kucherov (W - $8,400), Alex Killorn (W - $4,200)
You won't find a better third line across the league, as Tampa Bay's newly balanced lineup features defending Hart Trophy winner Nikita Kucherov outside of the top six. This alignment worked in the team's 3-2 win over Pittsburgh, during which Killorn scored a goal to extend his point streak to three games. Kucherov is playing at a point-per-game pace through nine and still features on the top power-play unit — which should come in handy against Nashville's bottom-five, 71.0 percent penalty kill — while Killorn skates on the second unit with the extra man. Cirelli has four points in nine games after recording 39 last season, but he should be capable of even more when skating on a line with Kucherov rather than flanked by usual bottom-six quality talent.
DEFENSEMEN
With seven points through 11 games, Neal Pionk ($4,200) currently ranks fourth on the Jets. He's behind Mark Scheifele, Patrik Laine and Nikolaj Ehlers but ahead of Blake Wheeler and Kyle Connor, among others. The defensive drop off from Jacob Trouba to Pionk is palpable, but the Jets traded Trouba for Pionk hoping to get similar offensive output at a much lower price, and that's exactly what they've gotten thus far.
It was mentioned earlier that Parise and Zucker share the team lead in goals by forwards, but Minnesota's overall goals leaders is defenseman Brad Hunt ($3,700) with four. Hunt has scored four of his six points on the power play, and he'll have a great opportunity to increase that total against Los Angeles' 70.3 percent penalty kill.
If you're looking to save money on the blue line, Sean Walker ($3,600) of the Kings could be worth a flier in Minnesota. The Wild are among the league's five worst defensive teams with 3.60 goals allowed per game, while Walker has a respectable 2-3-5 line going through 10 games.
Morgan Rielly ($6,300) flirted with a point-per-game pace last season and is doing so again in 2019-20. The point man on Toronto's top power-play unit should turn that role into further production against a Canadiens penalty kill that has been the league's second-worst at 67.6 percent.
