Written by LineStar Fantasy Wizard @ZeroInDenver

Welcome back to the NHL Hat Trick.

If you've been following along this season, I've tried to give a different nugget of info in the intro to each newsletter. I've talked about my thought process in looking for forwards, defensemen, and goalies. I've also talked about finding value. Be sure to check out past issues if you missed anything and let me know if there's anything else you'd like me to discuss.

There's a 4-game slate tonight - let's jump in.

Goaltending

My three favorite goaltenders on the night:

Ben Bishop, DAL (@OTT) (DK: $8.5K, FD: $8.9K)

For top tier goalies tonight, I think the choice really comes down to Rinne or Bishop. Rinne has outperformed Bishop from a fantasy perspective so far this season, but he also has a trend of alternating good games and bad games.

Garret Sparks, TOR (vs LA) (DK: $7.9K, FD: $7.1K)

Maybe I'm chasing wins, but I like Garret Sparks tonight. Toronto is 5-1 so far this season and face a LA team that is only scoring 2.2 goals a game so far this season. Sparks is a much better value on FanDuel, but I think he's a viable option if you don't want to spend up for Bishop or Rinne.

Jimmy Howard, DET (@MON) (DK: $7.2K, FD: $8.2K)

In this case, I think Howard is a much better value on DraftKings. Montreal is only scoring 2.44 goals a game while averaging 28 shots a game. I don't expect Howard to be great, but I think he's good enough to squeeze into lineups for GPPs.

#BiscuitInTheBasketWatchList 🚨

For those of you who aren’t familiar with hockey, “biscuit in the basket” is a term for scoring a goal. Here I’m going to give a center, wing, and defensemen for the top and value pricing tiers that I think has a good chance to score a goal.

Tyler Seguin: DAL – C (DK: $8.2K, FD: $7.9K)

It's hard to pick Seguin over Matthews tonight, but he gets a much better matchup against a Senators team that is giving up 4.2 goals a game.

Filip Forsberg : NSH- W (DK: $6.9K, FD: $7.7K)

This isn't a mistake. I know it's Monday, but I like Forsberg tonight. It's a bit of a contrarian play since Benn has the better matchup, but Minnesota is still giving up 3 goals a game and Dubynk has the night off.

Morgan Rielly: TOR - D (DK: $6K, FD: $5.8K)

Rielly has been averaging 4.4 shots a game over the past 5 games and has a high ceiling, which is why he's my pick tonight if you're spending up on defense.

Value Sticks

Similar to the biscuit-in-the-basket watch list, in this section I’ll provide a center, wing, and defensemen who are priced in the value tier. If I can find someone under priced on both sites, I’ll highlight them. But in some cases, it could be site specific.

Andreas Athanasiou: DET – C (DK: $4.3K, FD: $4.4K)

Whenever Niemi is starting in net, I immediately look at the other side. At first, I was leaning Larkin, but Athanasiou comes in at a much better price and is averaging close to 3 shots a game.

Artturi Lehkonen: MON - W (DK: $4.1K, FD: $4.9K)

Lehkonen is a value play that provides salary relief and will see some time on the second powerplay unit for Montreal.

Dylan DeMelo: OTT - D (DK: $3.4K, FD: $4.1K)

Ottawa is allowing an average of 72 shot attempts a game and Dallas is averaging 63 shot attempts per game, so I'm looking at Ottawa for value at D since I want some players that can block shots. DeMelo has been averaging two blocks per game and had 5 last time out against the Kings.

Bottom of the Barrel

I did this last season, and I’ll do it again this season. These are the players in the bottom of the salary barrel but are in a good spot.

Adrian Kempe: LA - C (DK: $3.7K, FD: $4.2K)

Colin White: OTT- W (DK: $3.3K, FD: $3.6K)

Filip Hronek: DET - D (DK: $3.5K, FD: $3.5K)

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. Here are some of my favorites today:

DAL: Benn-Seguin-Comeau (DK: $19.2K, FD: $19.8K)

For the most part, chalk seems to have come through so far this season. I don't think you can ignore this line and can top if off with John Klingberg at D.

TOR:  Marleau-Matthews-Kapanen (DK: $18.4K, FD: $17.9K)

It's a bit of a coin flip trying to decide between the Matthews line and the Tavares line, but I'm going to keep riding the Matthews line. Matthews could score one million goals this season.

NSH:  Forsberg-Johansen-Arvidsson (DK: $17.8K, FD: $19.9K)

According to my projections, this could be the lowest scoring game on the slate, but I have a lot of interest in this line. Stalock is in net for the Wild, who is averaging a slate-worst 40 shots allowed a game and a 82% high danger save percentage.

Risk-It-For-The-Biscuit Stack 🍪

MIN: Parise-Koivu-Granlund: (DK: $15K, FD: $18.3K)

Rinne seems to have this trend of good game, then bad game, then good game. Looking at his game logs, he's on track for a bad game, so I'm going to look towards the second line for Minnesota.

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