Good day, everyone! I played last night—because of course I did—and ended up with a decent cash. The tournament itself must have been a strange field. I went with Colorado’s top line, which is always popular, paired them with Carolina’s second line, and rolled out Igor Shesterkin in net. Somehow, that combination got there. A win’s a win, and we’ll take it.

This is a pretty interesting slate we have tonight, for an 11-gamer. The way I’m approaching roster construction will likely be by leaning into a more top‑heavy stack, mainly because there are so many solid value options available. Buffalo has cheap pieces, Dallas offers some nice salary relief, and even a few Blackhawks options are perfectly playable.

Slate Preview

Ottawa Senators

Even with Connor Ingram starting for the Oilers, I’m not overly concerned.If I’m facing a goaltender with a low save percentage, I’m happy to attack it—and that brings me to the Senators. Ottawa is a team I usually avoid, so for single‑entry players this might be a stay‑away spot, but in multi‑entry builds there’s a real case for getting exposure. The way I’d approach it is with a Brady Tkachuk ($7,600) – Dylan Cozens ($4,600) two‑man as the core, then I’d consider adding Shane Pinto ($4,100) and a defenseman to round it out. The appeal here is less about loving Ottawa and more about targeting Edmonton’s goaltending, which keeps pulling me back to the Sens as a viable tournament option.

Edmonton Oilers

Now, on the other side of the coin, we have the Oilers. There’s no stat or number that would tell me this, but it just feels like one of those McDavid and Co nuke the slate nights. Both Connor McDavid and Leon Draisiatl have played well since coming back from the Olympics, and I’m tempted to throw them into a lineup with maybe a cheaper option like Matt Savoie and spend up to Evan Bouchard on the blueline. Sometimes, I want the “best” players on a slate and tonight might be one to where I’m drawn to Edmonton.
Minnesota Wild

So, quietly since the beginning of February, the Bolts have taken a pretty high number of minor penalties if we look at all clubs in the league. I typically wouldn’t want to go against Andrei Vasilevskiy or the Tampa Blue line, but this might be a night to where the Wild go overlooked. For me, I never stack Minnesota without Kirill Kaprizov ($8,500), but that now may also be the case for Matt Boldy at $7,700 tonight. Again, I’ll add in say a cheaper one-off like Vladimir Tarasenko at $3,500 with 20 shots in his last ten games, and then expensive Quinn Hughes on the blue line. For my single-entry, I’m leaning Minnesota here as a way to get a little bit different on an 11-game slate.

Defense
If Zach Werenski goes tonight, then he’s in play at $8,300, with the other top d-men in play with Cale Makar at $7,800 or Rasmus Dahlin at $6,100. For middle-tier salary, I’ll lean Dougie Hamilton for ice-time at $5,100 or even Rasmus Andersson at $4,900. Cheaper d-men tonight, I’m all good with chasing blocks with Martin Fehervary at $2,800 and if you need even more salary savings, I could see rostering Connor Clifton for the Pens at $2,500.

Goalies

So, I’m going to go ahead and throw all these goaltenders in the mix together tonight – Logan Thompson ($8K),  Alex Lyon($7,900), either Minnesota starter ($7,500) or Lukas Dostal ($7,100)…all of these netminders tonight should see excellent volume. Really, wherever your salary demands need to be met, would be how I would select my goaltender and if any of these come up in an optimizer then I don’t think you’d be in a situation to swap.

That’s it for now, best of luck tonight!

For continued fantasy news and notes, follow me on Twitter @ndySanz.