Written by LineStar Daily Fantasy Life Coach @ZeroInDenver.

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Welcome to the NHL Hat Trick. Six games on tap tonight.

Years back, I heard some general DFS advice in that you should try hand-building a few lineups before doing any research. This is said to benefit you in a number of ways.

1. It helps you see where any immediate biases are.

2. It helps you see how lineups will fit together.

3. It gives you possible insight into how others might be constructing lineups.

I'll admit, I rely pretty heavily on the optimizer to build lineups for me, but I try not to let the optimizer run like a slot machine. In other words, I want my lineups to be assembled a certain way and follow certain rules. For me, it might be that I want all my players to have at least 15 minutes of ice time, each player needs to be on a power play line, or that I want to have at least 2 players from the late slate.

Your "rules" may vary from mine. That's ok. Some rules can be set in the optimizer. Some might take a little bit of finessing, which brings me back to my point on hand-building. As much as I want my optimizer lineups to look hand-built, I know that I need to scan through them before entering and look for mistakes. It's saved me more times than not and prevents me from wasting lineups.

With that said....

LETSSSSSSSSGOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

Got questions on tonight's slate? Hit me up in LineStar Chat

Tonight's Targets

First - a lot of this data might be foreign to most of you, so let me break it down (numbers over the last 10 games):

• W and L: Wins and Losses

• CF%, CF60, CA60: This is Corsi For %, Corsi For/60 minutes, Corsi Allowed/60 minutes

• HDCF60, HDCA60: This is High Danger Corsi For/60 minutes and High Danger Corsi Allowed/60 minutes.

• SF60, SA60: This is Shots For/60 minutes and Shots Allowed/60 minutes.

• SOT: Percentage of shots on target .

• Sh%: The percentage of shots on goal that are goals.

• SCF60, SCA60: Scoring chances for and allowed per 60 minutes

• GF60, GA60: These are goals for and goals allowed per 60 minutes.

• ScoreAgg: Summed numbers of a teams GF60, xGF60 and the opponent's GA60 and xGA60.

I'm overgeneralizing, but I want teams that aren't afraid to shoot the puck. More shot attempts the better. Then I narrow it down more based on teams that are hitting the net and getting goals. Again, really high level stuff. Don't go all in based on one or even a few numbers, but I think it's more useful than just going off of implied goals.

Now let's dig into this slate.

Goaltenders

Carey Price - MON (DK: $8400, FD: $8800)

Normally, I'd be all over Merzlikins, but Columbus will be without Seth Jones, Cam Atkinson, Josh Anderson, Dean Kukan, Ryan Murray, Alexandre Texier, Alexander Wennberg and Jooonas Korpisalo tonight. Oh yeah, and they're facing Tampa. No thanks. Instead, I'll take a flyer on an overpriced Carey Price tonight. He should see a good number of shots with Arizona averaging 32 SOG a game in their past 10 games.

Centers

Sean Couturier - PHI (DK: $6200, FD: $6900)

Couturier has a pretty good matchup against a team that's giving up 3.6 goals a game over their last 5 games.

Wingers

Mike Hoffman - FLA (DK: $5700, FD: $6600)

Come on. Ya'll don't really need me to tell you to play Ovechkin, right? Instead, I'm going to point someone out that I've been playing pretty heavy over the past couple of weeks. He doesn't have a great matchup, but I like his shot volume for the price and if you're going to play Ovechkin, you're going to need to find someone cheaper to pair with him.

Defensemen

Quinn Hughes - VAN (DK: $4300, FD: $4900)

Again, I'm looking for the best (and cheapest) option at D that will give me good shot volume, minutes, and PP1 time. To me, Hughes checks those boxes and is cheap enough that you might be able to fit Burns or Werenski with him.

If you take anything away from this, keep in mind that hockey is a high-variance sport. The top ranked player in each category could be a great play or be a dud tonight. Going all in on any player probably isn't a great move.

With DFS, I try to think of these things:

• Who makes the most sense to play?

• Where is the field leaning?

• Who has been the most consistent?

• Who has the most upside?

• Who will benefit me most if others are wrong?

Bottom of the Barrel

Some people call these "value" plays or "salary savers." I hate both terms. These are players that I like for tonight that fit at the lowest salary tier. It could be they're playing on one of the top forward lines or it could be that they've been playing well, but these are my cheap calls for a skater to pick up a goal or assist.

Nick Suzuki: MON - C (DK: $4400, FD: $4800)

Craig Smith: NSH - D (DK: $3900, FD: $4500)

Travis Sanheim: PHI - D (DK: $3700, FD: $3900)

Line Stacks

Line stacking is a common strategy in GPP. You’ll see a lot of winning lineups where players are stacked from the same forward lines or power play lines. DraftKings allows a maximum of 6 skaters from the same team (with skaters from at least 3 teams) and FanDuel allows a maximum of 4 skaters from one team. In tournaments, you'll often see 3-3 stacks (meaning 3 players from one team and 3 from another team), 4-3, and 3-3-2 stacks.

Looking at stacks for tonight, here are LineStar's top projected owned stacks, my top ranked, and the "risk it for the biscuit" stacks (high-upside, low ownership stacks.

Keep in mind, these are my favorites. These lines may change so keep an eye out for news during the day and during pre-game warmups. You should all do your own research and you might (and probably should) disagree with me in some spots. Don't be afraid to go your own way.

Good luck to–day! Tag me in the LineStar Chat @ZeroInDenver if you have any questions or feedback. Follow me on Twitter @ZeroInDenver.

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