The easing into the second round of the NHL playoffs ends Wednesday with the fourth and final series kicking off with its Game 1. To be fair, the NHL needed the Canadiens to triumph in Game 7 (and for Martin St. Louis to become the latest sports figure to misinterpret that one seen in The Wolf of Wall Street) before the team could travel to Buffalo. That game, for the second-round series I am most excited for, drops the puck at 7 p.m. ET, to be followed by Game 2 of Vegas-Anaheim. Here are my NHL DFS lineup recommendations.
SLATE PREVIEW
It would be surprising if the Sabres didn't go with Alex Lyon, and if John Tortorella stuck with Carter Hart after he allowed four goals on 12 shots, he's basically locked into the starting role for the Golden Knights. After the semi-surprising returns of Noah Dobson and William Karlsson from long-term injury, rosters are fairly well-sorted out across the board, it would seem.
GOALIE
Alex Lyon, BUF vs. MON ($7,800): The salary difference between Lyon and Jakub Dobes is only $200, so I went with Lyon since there wasn't much salary to be saved. While the sample size for each team here is a single series, the Sabres only allowed 25.2 shots on net per game in the first round, while the Canadiens managed a paltry 22.3 shots on goal per game. I feel like Montreal's Game 7 performance is already approaching infamy, and with those shooting numbers do recall multiple games went into overtime. Lyon may have an easy night in net, and also he's been incredible since stepping into the crease in this postseason. He has a .955 save percentage in four starts and one relief appearance.
VALUE PLAY/ONE-OFF
Troy Terry, ANA at VGK ($5,700): Terry didn't have a point in Game 1 of this series after helping to ice the Oilers with three points in the final game of that series. However, he put four shots on net in Game 1, and twice against Edmonton he tallied five shots on target. There was, as noted, a game in the first round in which Hart allowed four goals on 12 shots, but Game 1 of this series was the second non-overtime game in which Hart faced more than 30 shots, and once Utah got to 29. If Terry can keep shooting, he may light the lamp.
FORWARD LINE STACK TO CONSIDER
Golden Knights vs. Ducks
Mitch Marner (C - $6,200), Mark Stone (W - $6,400), Brett Howden (W - $3,800)
Look, when you finish the regular season comfortably in the bottom four in GAA but you still make the playoffs, you become an easy target. It's not like the Ducks have picked it up defensively here in the postseason, either. Anaheim has a 3.43 GAA in the playoffs. The return of Karlsson was never likely to mess with this line for Vegas, but the confirmation he's in a tertiary role does help clarify the picture from a stack perspective.
Marner was a victim of high expectations when it comes to the fact he finished with 80 points in his first season with the Golden Knights and people were murmuring about his play. Of course, were he doing that while still with Toronto he would have gotten the, "You're a worse version of Hitler!" treatment, so lucky for him he was in the desert. Also, lucky for the Golden Knights, he's been on fire in the playoffs, as Marner has nine points through seven games. Stone was moved off the top line, but he remains on the top power-play unit. The Ducks have a mere 75.0 penalty-kill percentage in the playoffs, and they finished 27th in the regular season. An assertion was made on the broadcast during Game 1 of this series that Howden is a player who picks up his game up the postseason. I don't know about that…but also maybe? He does have six points and 11 shots on net over his last five games, and his linemates are incredibly talented.
DEFENSEMAN
Bowen Byram, BUF vs. MON ($3,700): Perhaps Byram has tapped into his playoff experience from his time with the Avalanche to step up for the Sabres. He had five points and 15 shots on net against the Bruins in the first round, and he added six blocked shots. Byram isn't Rasmus Dahlin, but he's no slouch offensively, having notched 42 points and 109 shots on net during the regular season. The Canadiens were middling across the board defensively during the regular season, and while Dobes came up huge in the first round, he is a goalie with a career .904 save percentage.
