Sunday's NHL showdown is a single game, OTT @ ANA, with a $50,000 salary cap and a captain slot that scores 1.5x points at 1.5x salary. The slate locks at 8:00 p.m. ET (5:00 p.m. PT).
Our model's top-ranked plays lean heavily toward ANA. Laurent Brossoit is the headline at $10,200 with a ceiling of 26.2, the highest on the board. Cutter Gauthier follows at $9,800 with a 24.4 ceiling and a DraftKings average of 12.7, and Leo Carlsson sits at $9,200 with a 24.1 ceiling. Beckett Sennecke ($8,800, ceiling 21.0) rounds out the ANA group. On the OTT side, Tim Stuetzle at $9,600 has the best DraftKings average of the group at 14.2, though his ceiling is 20.0. Jake Sanderson is $9,000 with a ceiling of 19.3.
Value is where this slate gets interesting. Nick Jensen costs just $2,800 for ANA and carries a ceiling of 14.4 with a DraftKings average of 9.1, which is a strong return on salary. Philip Tomasino of OTT is even cheaper at $2,000, with a 13.7 ceiling and an 8.0 average. Either one frees up room to pay for the stars at the top.
Be aware of the injury tags before you build. DraftKings lists Linus Ullmark, William Eklund, Andre Burakovsky and Warren Foegele of OTT as IR, with Hayden Hodgson marked OUT. On the ANA side, Troy Terry, Ryan Poehling and Ian Moore all carry IR tags.
Our model's top lineup uses $48,500 of the $50,000 cap. It puts Judd Caulfield in the captain slot at $6,900, then fills the flex spots with Gauthier ($9,800), Drake Batherson ($8,400), Pavel Mintyukov ($4,000), Brossoit ($10,200) and Carlsson ($9,200).
Lock your lineups before 8:00 p.m. ET.
Follow @numeric_dfs on X.