This article is one in a series that uses the FantasyLabs Tools to build daily fantasy scouting reports for each of the NHL’s brightest stars.
The sky is falling in Minnesota as the Wild limp into the playoffs. Is goaltender Devan Dubnyk to blame? Let’s dig into his DFS performance.
Statistical Breakdown
Here are Dubnyk’s per-game averages since he was traded to the Wild:
With a strong defensive team in front of him, Dubnyk’s consistency in the regular season is good — but his recent struggles and lack of playoff success are both concerning.
From a fantasy perspective, Dubnyk this season had a solid +1.24 DraftKings Plus/Minus with a 61.2 percent Consistency Rating until March, but since then he has been dreadful, averaging a -2.07 Plus/Minus with 26.7 percent Consistency (per our Trends tool).
The Wild have lost seven of their last ten games and are 5-13 since March 1. Of course, whenever a team loses it’s always the goalie’s fault. As Van Wilder would say, “Write that down.”
Trends
On a serious note, “The Dube” has been a consistent producer for most of this season until the past month or so. Let’s see if there are particular situations in which he’s struggled.
Vegas
Wins heavily impact goaltender scoring in NHL DFS, so it makes sense to target Vegas favorites. Here are the different moneyline ranges for starters:
Underdog goalies typically have reduced ownership — but far less value and lower Consistency Ratings.
Here are those same moneyline ranges for Dubnyk:
Dubnyk has provided a ton of value and Consistency as a slight favorite but has been relatively worthless outside of that situation. This season especially, Dubnyk has been a strong fade with a moneyline greater than -175, mustering a -0.04 Plus/Minus with 40 percent Consistency and a staggering 16.2 percent ownership.
Home/Away
In terms of splits, goalies typically provide more value and higher Consistency at home, but they also have nearly double the ownership, which Pro subscribers can review in our DFS Ownership Dashboard shortly after lineups lock.
Unlike his teammate Mikael Grandlund, Dubnyk has been slightly better on the road than at home this season:
At nearly a third of the ownership, Dubnyk definitely offers some contrarian intrigue on the road, especially if recency bias causes his ownership to dip even lower.
Grandlund: DFS Scouting Report
Division Games
Division games typically have little impact on a starting goaltender’s value. Over the past two seasons, Dubnyk has fallen in line with that trend with +0.2 Plus/Minus values in both division and non-division games at comparable ownership levels.
However, Dubnyk has been at his best against the Atlantic Division in particular:
Unfortunately, there probably isn’t a huge edge here: He’s also had the highest ownership when facing the Atlantic.
Peripheral Stats and Shots Against
On DraftKings and FanDuel, a goalie receives the same number of points for a win as any player receives for a goal. That’s substantial.
We talk a lot about the impact of peripheral stats on skaters, but at goalie they may be even more crucial. Saves are more common than shots and blocked shots, but the Wild fall closely in line with the pack in shots against per game (SA/G):
He may not see as many shots as Matt Murray in Pittsburgh, but in comparison to a goalie like Martin Jones — who sees very few shots in San Jose — Dubnyk isn’t suffering due to a lack of peripheral stats. Rather, his lack of production in March probably has more to do with his .893 save percentage and 2.53 goals against average over that span.
Murray: DFS Scouting Report
Jones: DFS Scouting Report
Bargain Rating
Bargain Rating is a proprietary FantasyLabs metric that shows how expensive a player is on one site versus another. Bargain Rating enables DFS players to exploit significant differences in site pricing.
Dubnyk has had a DraftKings Bargain Rating of at least 80 percent in 71.9 percent of his games in 2016-17:
Outside of his March apocalypse (-2.1 Plus/Minus), he’s provided a real edge in these games, performing above his seasonal averages of a +0.46 Plus/Minus and 53.1 percent Consistency.
Stacking the Wild
Here’s the average production for Minnesota players during Dubnyk’s 20 best fantasy performances of the past two seasons:
DraftKings
FanDuel
In true Minnesota fashion, Dubnyk seems to be best used in stacks with middle-of-the-road options, although that probably says more about the quality of the Wild’s skill players than it does about him.
Surprisingly, stacking him with an elite peripheral stat skater in Zach Parise has not been highly useful. The Correlations tab in our Player Models bears this out, as Dubnyk and Parise have a correlation of just .08 on DraftKings and .17 on FanDuel. You are probably better off pairing Dubnyk with Eric Staal or Martin Hanzal, value centers with decent peripheral upside.
Conclusion
Like the Wild, Dubnyk has seen a good 2016-17 campaign go up in smoke over the past month. Unlike other starting goaltenders, he struggles as a heavy favorite and is at his best in the -175 to -1 moneyline range. He also performs slightly better on the road than at home, which makes him an intriguing GPP option due to the decreased ownership.
His peripheral stats alone are not enough to keep his value afloat, so if he is going to rebound as a fantasy asset then Minnesota will need to start winning some games. Regularly underpriced on DraftKings, Dubnyk isn’t easy to stack due to the Wild’s lack of superstars. As it is, he tends to correlate best with his unheralded teammates.
