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Get today's top DraftKings daily fantasy hockey lineup picks for September 29, 2026. Doug's expert NHL DFS goalies picks, value plays, stacks, and power play picks.
Fall is my favorite season. I’m a basic dude; give me a cider donut, NFL football, a chill in the air, and 10 men skating on some ice, and I’m as happy as a clam. Tonight marks the beginning of another NHL season, with four games on the main slate (Florida and Carolina is a standalone game), and it should be a fun one.
With the start of the year come new faces in new places: Sergei Bobrovsky, Chris Kreider, a bunch of defenders, and the debut of first-overall pick Gavin McKenna. Some of the data we are working with will be from last year, while other pieces of information come from the preseason. Regardless, we'll find spots to take advantage of and pop big wins early and often.
I aim to help you narrow your plays to get the most bang for your DFS buck. NHL Premium members can find members of the RotoBaller NHL family on Discord, where our chat is always active. I'll bring my NHL lineup picks, analysis, and advice for NHL DFS contests on DraftKings for Tuesday, September 29, at 7:00 p.m. ET. Also check out RotoBaller's awesome NHL tools, including our Lineup Optimizer, Research Station, and Heat Map.
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NHL DFS Analysis And Picks For 9/29/26
Toronto Maple Leafs (TOR1 - Auston Matthews, Jack Roslovic, Matthew Knies; $18300 DK)
Defensive Addition: Darren Raddysh ($5700 DK)
Toronto can’t be as bad as they were last year, can they? When you’ve got a guy like Auston Matthews on your top line, you’re never too far away from being a top-scoring team in the league. Matthews will be joined by Matthew Knies and Jack Roslovic on Toronto’s top line, and that pairing with Knies is lethal. The duo combined for 4.73 even-strength goals per 60 minutes at home over the team’s final 20 games.
Newcomer Darren Raddysh will join Matthews and Knies on the power play, and he is a must with your Toronto stack. He was a major facilitator in Tampa Bay last season, dishing out 48 assists and scoring 22 goals in the regular season.
Oh my Auston Matthews... pic.twitter.com/0PYYCzRe8K
— Sportsnet (@Sportsnet) September 24, 2026
The Leafs should be in line for a monster debut this year, facing off against the worst defensive pairing on the slate in Mike Matheson and Noah Dobson. The duo allowed a slate-worst 3.55 expected even-strength goals, 15.23 high-danger chances, and 33.44 scoring changes per 60 minutes at home last season. Those high-danger chances could be their downfall, as Matthews averaged 17.56 high-danger chances per 60 minutes at even strength at home any time he was on the ice over the final half of the season last year.
Montreal Canadiens (MTL1 - Cole Caufield, Nick Suzuki, Chris Kreider; $18700 DK)
Defensive Addition: Lane Hutson ($5300 DK)
While I expect the Toronto offense to be better, holes on the back end make the Montreal Canadiens my favorite road team to hammer on this slate. The Toronto defensive pairing of Troy Stecher and Oliver Ekman-Larsson remains from last year, and they were awful. Only Montreal’s own duo of Matheson and Dobson allowed more than the 14.72 high-danger chances per 60 minutes that the Leafs’ pairing gave up.
This is bad news for Toronto, as the Canadiens averaged the most even-strength goals during the preseason of any team on tonight’s slate. Cole Caufield and Nick Suzuki averaged more fantasy points per game on the road than at home last season. When they were on the ice with defender Lane Hutson on the road, they were nearly unstoppable, scoring just shy of six even-strength goals per 60 minutes over the season’s final 20 games.
Chris Kreider joins the line, bringing his 24 goals from Anaheim with him. He’s a cheap option at $4900 to make this trio a quartet. I don’t foresee this being a widely rostered stack given that Vegas, Edmonton, Boston, and Toronto are all on the slate, which makes them a perfect secondary line with one of the more popular teams in a large-field GPP.
Vegas Goldn Knights (VGK1 - Jack Eichel, Ivan Barbashev, Mark Stone; $18600 DK)
Defensive Addition: Shea Theodore ($5400 DK)
For those of you who have followed my work over the past 10 years (I can’t believe I’ve been doing this for that long), you know I’m a Vegas guy at heart. I started my writing career in Vegas, and the Golden Knights came along a year later. Although I’ve since moved back to New York, I will always be a Vegas homer at heart, but it doesn’t mean that’s why I’ve got them as a top play tonight.
The defending Western Conference champions get a prime matchup against a Blackhawks squad missing their best offensive player, Connor Bedard, which brings back a poor defensive unit. The addition of Bowen Byram will help the Chicago offense, but it does nothing for their ability to stop goals. He’s not our target tonight, as we will be running the Vegas top line against the pairing of Wyatt Kaiser and Artyom Levshunov. That duo allowed a slate-high 35.14 even-strength scoring chances per 60 minutes on the road last year, along with a healthy 13.18 high-danger chances.
Jack Eichel doing Jack Eichel things 😃 pic.twitter.com/BvqSAbc1ir
— Vegas Golden Knights (@GoldenKnights) September 25, 2026
Vegas may have lost some scoring power in Pavel Dorofeyev, but their offense still should produce at a high level. Mark Stone will slot back on the top line with Jack Eichel and Ivan Barbashev, coming off a finals run that saw him score seven goals and record five assists. He will be a welcome addition to a line that saw numerous players rotating in and out next to Barbashev and Eichel last season.
Shea Theodore is the defender to stack with the top line. He hopes to build off a postseason that saw him return to form with 12 assists and six goals after posting just 10 goals and 29 assists during the regular season. If he’s back to form, Vegas is going to score a ton this year, and that could very well start with tonight’s game.
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NHL DFS Value Stack of the Night
Vancouver Canucks (VAN2 - Brock Boeser, Marco Rossi, Liam Ohgren; $11700 DK)
While the Vegas third line may be in a bit of a better spot, I don’t want to highlight two lines from the same team on a four-game slate. Instead, we can look to Vancouver, who will carry precisely zero ownership despite the lack of games to choose from. The Canucks look to be one of the worst teams in the NHL this season, but that doesn’t mean we should ignore them if they’re in a good spot.
Their second line should see a lot of ice time with Edmonton’s defensive pairing of Jake Walman and Connor Murphy, neither of whom are particularly adept at stopping opposing offenses. Walman is much more of an offensive defender, while Murphy specializes in blocked shots, but he doesn’t specialize in keeping pucks out of nets.
In limited time last season, the pairing allowed 54.87 even-strength scoring chances and 3.14 expected goals per 60 minutes at home. While those scoring chances are an inflated number due to a smaller sample size, these two are historically defenders we have picked on.
The Canucks offense isn’t anything special, but Brock Boeser can be a higher-volume shooter, taking three or more shots on goal in 40% of his games. That’s a nice ratio for a player priced at just $5000. Marco Rossi finished the season strong, scoring double-digit fantasy points in four of his final nine games, showing the kind of upside that he possesses at his value price point of $4,100.
NHL DFS Goalie to Target
Jakub Dobes (MTL - $7600 DK)
While I really like Toronto’s top line tonight because of their defensive matchup, that doesn’t mean we can’t still like Jakub Dobes if we are fading the Maple Leafs. Dobes was a monster on the road at the end of last season, saving over 85% of the high-danger shots he faced, and with the defense in front of him, he should expect to be peppered with those again tonight. He was stellar against the Leafs, allowing just 1.23 goals per game, saving 95.1% of the shots he faced, and posting a 3-0-1 record.
Although they didn’t show it much last season, when they averaged just 26.3 per game, Toronto can be a higher-shot-volume team when their offense is cooking. On a short slate like this, I’m looking for any edge I can find, and given how well Dobes played against the Leafs last year, and how well he played to close the season, he’s a steal at just $7,600.
My lineups tonight will either have the Toronto top line or they will have Dobes, as one of the two should have a good night, and in some situations they both can. If Toronto scores three goals on 40 shots in a loss, and all the goals come from the Matthews line, you hit the double whammy and all your lines hit the cash line.
Others in consideration: Carter Hart (VGK), Igor Shesterkin (NYR), Jeremy Swayman (BOS)
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