There are 11 games on the NHL schedule for Thursday beginning at 7 p.m. ET, giving hockey fans everywhere plenty of games to sweat. That includes an eye-popping matchup between the San Jose Sharks and Pittsburgh Penguins where the Over-Under is a whopping seven goals. Accordingly, Penguins center Sidney Crosby and Sharks defenseman Erik Karlsson are two of the highest-priced options at their respective positions in NHL DFS tournaments and cash games on Thursday's slate. Before locking in your NHL DFS lineups on sites like FanDuel and DraftKings, be sure to check out DFS millionaire Mike McClure's NHL picks for Thursday night.
McClure is a DFS professional with nearly $2 million in career winnings. He's also a predictive data engineer at SportsLine who uses a powerful prediction model that simulates every minute of every game 10,000 times, taking factors like matchups, statistical trends and injuries into account. This allows him to find the best NHL DFS values and create optimal lineups that he shares only over at SportsLine. They're a must-see for any NHL DFS player.
On Wednesday, McClure was all over Avalanche wing Gabriel Landeskog at $6,800 on FanDuel. The result: He scored a goal and dished out an assist against the Jets -- returning over 25 points and nearly 4x value. Anyone who followed his lead was well on their way to a winning night.
For Thursday's slate, we can tell you McClure is rostering Lightning wing Nikita Kucherov at $9,200 on FanDuel and $7,700 on DraftKings.
Kucherov has scored an astonishing 18 points in his last six games and now has 99 for the season as the Lightning continue to dominate the NHL standings. On Thursday, he gets a Sabres squad that he's torched for five points the last two times he's faced them. The Sabres have given up 14 goals in their last three games, so Kucherov has a strong chance to go off in a juicy matchup.
McClure's optimal NHL DFS strategy also involves targeting Sharks defenseman Brent Burns ($7,500 on FanDuel and $7,000 on DraftKings), who has 13 points in his last 10 games.
Burns has already notched his fifth consecutive 60-point season as a defenseman. The Sharks will be in Pittsburgh on Thursday night, and the Penguins have given up 13 goals in their last three games and five goals in each of their last two home contests. To make the matchup even sweeter, Burns has registered a point in each of his last five trips to Pittsburgh.
McClure is also targeting an undervalued player who is set to explode for huge numbers on Thursday night. He's a huge steal at his price point, so this pick could be the difference between cashing and going home with nothing.
So what is the optimal NHL DFS lineup for Thursday? Visit SportsLine now to see DFS millionaire Mike McClure's complete optimal tournament lineups for FanDuel and DraftKings, and cash in big on NHL DFS.
