Happy Thursday y’all.

Thursday Night Football is tonight. Typically my strategy with TNF is to only play GPPs and fade the game entirely. I will only play cash games if there are guys I love, and this week there are two of them – Devonta Freeman (7k) and Willie Snead (3.3k). I am going out of my way to play cash games tonight just to get those two guys.

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I am still fading them in GPPs because I expect their ownership to be really, really high… 42% for Devonta and 28% for Snead I project. I expect everybody playing tonight to be highly owned really. Thursday players always are and this week they’re supposed to score a bunch of points, too.

Before kickoff tonight, a puck will drop somewhere on the East coast. Eight games are on the slate and this has been a fun start to the season. The plays have been very clear to me this week and I have been shocked at how lowly owned they have been.

Tampa Bay is the only team with a team total over 3 goals. Stamkos is cheap at 7.3k, he skates on the top line with lumps Drouin and Callahan. Although I wish Stamkos had better skating partners, this is nothing new from the Lightning, and Stamkos still puts up elite numbers every year. I like him as a singleton play and may have him in cash games, although I expect him to match up against Benn and Seguin so he may be busy.

I like (Coach) Cooper’s strategy of putting his 2nd, 3rd, and 4th best skaters together on The Triplets line of Palat, Johnson, and Kucherov. They get better matchups with Stamkos keeping the opponent’s’ top line busy, and this yielded last year’s NHL leading +/- as they scored something like 67 goals.

The Triplets have yet to break out this year and their prices are cheap, although I wish Johnson wasn’t 6k, I feel obliged to find 1300 more to get Stamkos. That makes that 2nd line with Johnson a great GPP play. Stralman is a steal on defense at 3.8k, he skates 22 minutes and on the top power play line with Stamkos, Palat, Johnson, and Kucherov.

Florida is expected to score 2.9 goals against the lowly Sabres. You can’t go wrong with any skater against Buffalo who gives up an average of 420 shots on goal per game. My favorite play of the bunch is Barkov at 4.8k centering the top line and power play unit. I like his linemates Huberdeau (6k) and Jagr (5k) too. I like Ekblad as a hockey player, but I don’t like that he only gets 18 minutes on the ice and costs 5.2k, I’d much rather have Stralman or…

Ryan Suter, defenseman for Minnesota, who is 3rd on the team total list with 2.8 goals. He is 4.2k and spends 24 minutes on the ice including the top power play unit with Parise, Granlund, Pominville, and Koivu. I love all those guys too, especially Granlund (4k) who spends the most time on the ice of the forwards for the Wild and is surrounded by studs Parise and Pominville. His floor is low since he only averages about a shot a game, but he scores goals from time to time and dishes out lots of helpers to his superstar wingers. Tough to argue for 4k. Koivu at 4.2k is an intriguing option as well.

Sign up for a DraftKings accountand play DFS tonight.

Other teams to target are: Pittsburgh and St. Louis. Ownerships on chalk players remains low enough that I think going contrarian at this point in the season is lighting money on fire.

Minding the net, I will be taking Luongo in cash games. Biggest favorite on the board (-203) and cheapest of the goalies I like at 7k. He won’t face a lot of shots, but that’s what makes him safe. His floor is high, but his ceiling isn’t much higher and he will be popular so fade him in GPPs. I am considering Dubnyk (7.1k), Elliott (7.5k), Fleury (7.9k), and Bishop (8k) for GPPs. All five of these goalies are confirmed to start tonight.

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