Monday's NHL showdown is a single game, DET @ EDM, with a $50,000 cap and a captain slot that scores 1.5x points at 1.5x salary. The slate locks at 9:30 p.m. ET (6:30 p.m. PT).
The top of our model's board is all Edmonton. Connor McDavid costs $10,600 with a ceiling of 41.0 and a DraftKings average of 23.9. Leon Draisaitl is next at $10,200, with a 39.5 ceiling and a 22.3 average. Evan Bouchard rounds out the top three at $9,600, with a ceiling of 33.7 and an average of 19.6. The best Detroit option on the board is Alex DeBrincat at $9,400, who carries a 26.9 ceiling and a 15.2 average.
The value plays are where this slate gets interesting. Connor Murphy of EDM costs just $5,000, yet his ceiling is 21.9. His DraftKings average is only 6.1, so the ceiling is the draw rather than the floor. In the mid-range, Vasily Podkolzin ($7,600, 19.8 ceiling) and Ryan Nugent-Hopkins ($7,200, 19.2 ceiling) both sit on the Edmonton side, while Lucas Raymond of DET is $7,400 with an 18.2 ceiling.
We don't have ownership figures for this slate, so we can't say where the crowd will land.
Our model's top lineup uses $49,500 of the $50,000 cap. It puts Draisaitl at captain for $15,300, then fills the FLEX spots with McDavid ($10,600), Bouchard ($9,600), Nugent-Hopkins ($7,200), Ryan Shea ($4,800) and Anton Johansson ($2,000). The two cheap pieces pay for the three EDM stars, which is how the build fits Draisaitl at captain alongside McDavid and Bouchard.
Check the DraftKings status tags before you finalize anything. Daniil Tarasov of DET is tagged DTD, and Mattias Ekholm of EDM is tagged OUT. Lineups lock at 9:30 p.m. ET.
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