We have another two-game NHL DFS slate today for the Stanley Cup playoffs with Matthew Tkachuk and the Calgary Flames looking to stay alive in their elimination game against Leon Draisaitl and the Edmonton Oilers, and Andrew Svechnikov and the Carolina Hurricanes will look to maintain the home-ice advantage as they take on Artemi Panarin and the New York Rangers.
 

 

 

New York Rangers at Carolina Hurricanes

 


The Rangers dominated game four at home, but with the scene shifting back to Raleigh, it will be interesting to see if the momentum shifts with it. For the Rangers, they continue to see the strong play from Andrew Copp who has been a star for them so far in this series, and contributed a goal and two assists in 16 minutes of ice time, while putting just one shot on goal. Mika Zibanejad also scored for the second straight night, and he continues to be a solid performer for the Rangers, although with the series back in Carolina it will be more difficult for him and his linemates due to line matching, which should open up opportunities for Ryan Strome and Artemi Panarin as they won’t see Carolina’s best defensive players as often as the top line will.

The Hurricanes have struggled to solve Igor Shesterkin in this series, but they still have a host of good offensive options. We have seen a solid series for Teuvo Teravainen in this series, and players like Sebastian Aho, Andrei Svechnikov, Vincent Trochek, and Nino Niederreiter continue to be solid options, and you could get good values from Seth Jarvis and Martin Necas who are playing a good amount of minutes.
 

Adam Fox continues to play big minutes for the Rangers, and he is coming off a nice two-point, four-shot game as well. He should remain a high upside option in this series. Jacob Trouba has been the other Rangers target in this series. He has provided some shots and blocked shots, but he hasn’t really done anything in quantity as he only has one point in this series, and he hasn’t hit five shots or three blocks in the series. We continue to see a lack of production from the Hurricanes' defense in this series. They were again kept off the scoresheet on Tuesday, but we did see a five-shot game from Jaccob Slavin which is encouraging, and we saw both Brady Skjei and Brett Pesce blocked three shots or more, however, that isn’t something we have seen consistently from them so I would keep my focus on Slavin if you’re looking for a value option on defense.
 

Goalies have largely been the stars of this series. Igor Shesterkin has definitely found his footing in this series and has looked much more comfortable than he did early in the Pittsburgh series. Anti Raanta has played quite well also even in the previous game where he wasn’t statistically excellent. Both goalies are viable options today.

 

Edmonton Oilers vs Calgary Flames

 

 

We should expect the Flames to come out firing in this game with them facing elimination. We didn’t see great performances from Johnny Gaudreau or Matthew Tkachuk in the games in Edmonton, and that is a large reason for the Flames being behind in this series. If the two of them can get going it will be a great aid to the Flames winning this game.

 This game being back in Calgary though we should hope to see more from their stars, and we should continue to look to players like Mikael Backlund, Tylor Toffoli, and Andrew Mangiapane who can provide solid value. For the Oilers’ their stars have been their best players. Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl continue to rack up points, and we continue to see Evander Kane and Zach Hyman score goals. There isn’t a huge need either to stray away from those four players with the performances we have seen from them with the exception of Ryan Nugent-Hopkins who had two goals in the last game to go with five shots. High shot volumes aren’t something we typically expect to see from Nugent-Hopkins, but it's a trend worth following with how shots are valued.
 

We continue to see erratic production from both the Oilers and the Flames defense. We saw DFS production from the Oilers players with Cody Ceci and Tyson Barrie both getting assists, and Darnel Nurse and Evan Bouchard both blocking three shots or more. With the lack of consistency from any of those players, Bouchard is still the best play as he holds the highest upside and has given us something each game. For the Flames, we had the fluke goal from Rasmus Andersson from his own blue line, but he did also add four shots on goals and he continues to be a solid play most nights. Otherwise, the only player who was noteworthy in game four was Nikita Zadorov who had six shots on goal, but I would be surprised if he had half that number of shots today.
 

The struggles continue for both goalies in this series. Jacob Markstrom hasn’t played well in this series and looks uncomfortable in goal, while Mike Smith continues to be erratic with his play, which essentially leaves me wanting to avoid both goalie situations in this game.

 


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