This article is part of our DraftKings NHL series.
We dipped our toe into the NHL playoffs Saturday, with two games on the slate. Sunday, we get what we expect from this point of the postseason, which is to say four games. Four more series kick off Sunday, with the first puck dropping at 12:30 p.m. ET. Here are my DFS recommendations.
SLATE PREVIEW
Naturally, nobody is on the second, or the first, leg of a back-to-back Sunday. Also, these eight teams are all locked into their number-one goalies, even Washington, who gave Charlie Lindgren basically every start from the beginning of March on.
GOALIE
Igor Shesterkin, NYR vs. WAS ($8,200): The Capitals are the weakest of the 16th playoff teams, which really rubs it in for me as a Wings fan. Their offense was quite futile for much of the season, and they actually traded away talent this year, not thinking of this as a season for contention. Washington averaged 2.63 goals and 26.5 shots on net per game. Shesterkin had the worst season of his career, but still managed a 2.58 GAA and .912 save percentage, which remains above average.
VALUE PLAY/ONE-OFF
Conor Garland, VAN vs. NAS ($4,400): Three players on the Canucks had at least 200 shots on net this year. Elias Pettersson and Brock Boeser will surprise effectively nobody. Then, there's Garland, who scored 20 goals on 200 shots on target this season. Allowing a lot of shots on goal is not an ideal path to making the playoffs. As such, only two teams in the bottom 10 on that front made the postseason. One is the Islanders, and the other is, yes, the Predators.
FORWARD LINE STACK TO CONSIDER
Rangers vs. Capitals
Vincent Trocheck (C - $6,700), Artemi Panarin (W - $8,700), Alexis Lafreniere (W - $4,900)
The Capitals are the picture of mediocrity defensively. They finished the regular season ranked 16th in GAA, 21st in shots on net allowed per game, and 19th on the penalty kill. Lindgren had a 2.67 GAA and .911 save percentage, but he's never been the guy for a playoff team before. Now, he has to play a Game 1 in Madison Square Garden. New York's second line is possibly the best second line in the NHL, though of course it also features its best player, which helps.
Trocheck ended the regular season cool, if not cold, but right before that he was red hot. All in all, he tallied 77 points, and also 215 shots on net. Additionally, he had 24 points with the extra man. Panarin ended the season on a 13-game point streak, which doesn't really feel surprising for him. He just had the second-best season in terms of points in Rangers history (120 to Jaromir Jagr's 123) and put over 300 shots on net for the first time. This was the season Lafreniere made the leap. He tallied 28 goals on 217 shots on target while adding 29 assists, all career highs. The onetime first-overall pick did that while basically not playing on the power play.
DEFENSEMAN
Neal Pionk, WPG vs. COL ($3,900): Give Pionk credit for consistency. He's had between 32 and 34 points in each of his last four seasons. This year he also put 146 shots on net, his most since the 2019-20 campaign. The 28-year-old also has six points in his last eight games. There are still questions about Alexandar Georgiev in goal, as he had a 3.02 GAA and .897 save percentage as Colorado's number-one netminder.
