LineStar® Hat Trick 05/5 | Handling Late Scratches

May 05, 2021

Written by LineStar Fantasy Life Coach @ZeroInDenver.

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Welcome to the NHL Hat Trick.

ICYMI - The NHL Season Preview & Strategy guide goes over the basics of NHL DFS and what I look for when researching players.

Something that should be discussed is how to handle late scratches. For example, Mathew Barzal was announced out last night:

How to react to this will depend on how soon news comes out. Andrew Gross tweeted this 5 minutes before lock. When that happens all you can do is do a global swap to someone, anyone, else. If you aren't sure who to swap to, pick someone from a game that starts much later so you can at least buy yourself some time on deciding who to swap to and if you want to make any changes to the rest of your lineup.

If you have more time, I recommend going on Twitter and do a search for "[Team] lines". For example, "Islander lines" or "NYI lines" and see if you can find something from a beat writer. If changes occur within the last 30 minutes before lock, it's unlikely that sites will get updated news and lines in time.

Hopefully, that helps! Let's dive into today's slate.

LETSSSSSSSSSSGOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!

Tonight's Slate

Here's numbers on the teams from their past 10 games. Generally, I start my research by looking for teams in good spots. For example, teams that score goals (GF60) that are facing teams that give up goals (GA60). I also look at teams that shoot a lot (CF60) that are facing teams that give up a lot of shots (CA60).

Line Stacks

Favorite stack of the night that isn't COL1:

Vegas is still one of the best teams in the league and both top lines rank high for me (right behind STL).

I think VGK-MIN makes for an interesting game stack. My favorite lines for MIN are MIN3, MIN2, and MIN1, in that order. You could fit MIN3 and VGK2 and still have room to fit a solid tender and pair of defensemen.

Biscuit Stack

Winnipeg hasn't been playing well over their last 10. They've only won 2 games and are allowing 3.6 goals over that span. The top line for Calgary is interesting to me, and are worth a look tonight.

Goaltender Rankings

How to Read This: 

I'm giving you a comparison of LineStar projections vs the average fantasy points scored over their last 10 games. I've also given you their save percentage (over 0.910 is ideal), goals allowed (lower is better), saves per game (more is better), GAA (Goals Saved Above Average), and my projected upside for each goalie.

Generally, if I'm stacking a team, I'll correlate a goalie if I can. In GPPs, I may not have the salary to make this work. In this case, I usually spend down on someone that I expect will take a lot of shots and could pick up the W.

As always - double-check that your goalie is starting before the game starts.

My Favorites:

CASH: Juuse Saros - NSH (DK: $8300, FD: $7600)

GPP: Elvis Merzlikins - CLS (DK: $7100, FD: $7100)

Forwards and Defensemen Rankings

Here are my overall rankings on the top 15 skaters on the main slate. These are players that I would look to insert into my lineups as one-offs or lineup fillers if I'm stacking or double-stacking lines.

My Favorites

Jakob Chychrun - ARI - DK: $7300 | FD: $5700

Much better price on FD, but I like him on DK since most would rather play Avs at that price.

Filip Forsberg - NSH - DK: $6600 | FD: $4300

It's not Tuesday, but that doesn't mean we can't play him on Wednesday's too.

Evander Kane - CHI - DK: $6200 | FD: $7400

Love the shot volume and Colorado is allowing 2.9 goals a game.

Joel Eriksson Ek - MIN - DK: $4100 | FD: $4500

Don't love the top line for MIN as a stack, but JEE is a pretty solid one-off

Blake Coleman - TBL - DK: $4200 | FD: $4000

Relatively cheap for good shot volume.

Bottom of the Barrel

Here are my cheap calls for a skater to pick up a goal or assist.

Erik Haula: NSH - C - DK: $3600 | FD: $3700

Emil Bemstrom: CLS - W - DK: $2600 | FD: $3000

Christopher Tanev: CGY - D - DK: $3100 | FD: $3600

Disclaimer: Keep in mind, plays and thoughts listed are my own. 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 today! Tag me in the LineStar Chat @ZeroInDenver if you have any questions or feedback. Follow me on Twitter @ZeroInDenver.

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