Written by LineStar Fantasy Wizard @ZeroInDenver

Welcome back to the NHL Hat Trick.

We've got a great 8 game slate tonight and I want to spend a little bit of time talking about lineup construction.

Remember, NHL DFS plays closer to MLB DFS than NFL or NBA. In other words, instead of looking for the best play at each position, you're most likely going to look for the best play at a position that is linked to a good play at another position. For example, let's say that I really want to play Taylor Hall tonight. If I play Hall, I'm probably going to want to play someone else in my lineup that he shares ice time with. I could go with one of his linemates (Hischier or Palmieri), but maybe I want to play someone like Zajac or Butcher that also shares time with Hall on the power play and gives me a little exposure to another line. Make sense?

Normally, when I'm playing double ups, my lineup is a 2x2x2 stack, meaning I have a pair of players from three different teams. This allows me to diversify enough in my lineup that if one team is a dud, it doesn't hurt my lineup too much. But if one player does have a good game, hopefully the other player picks up some correlation points.

Now that we've talked a bit about lineup construction, let's dive into some of the plays that I like. Of course, if you have any other questions, be sure to tag me in chat at @ZeroInDenver

Goaltending

My three favorite goaltenders on the night:

Devan Dubnyk, MIN (vs ARI) (DK: $8.5K, FD: $8.6K)

In terms of goal scoring, Arizona is the worst team on the slate tonight with 0.49 goals scored a game. I'm also a homer for Dubnyk at home. The Wild generally play better at home and I could see this being a big game for Dubnyk tonight.

Semyon Varlamov, COL (vs NYR) (DK: $8K, FD: $8.2K)

Rangers are off to a terrible start and although I don't like Varlamov's price, I think it's justified with his recent play (94.57 Sv% and 3.67 GSAA)

Keith Kinkaid, NJ (vs DAL) (DK: $7K, FD: $8.1K)

Kinkaid has been playing really well this year (94.94 Sv% and 3.74 GSAA) and I love his price. Even if he does let a few in, he should see plenty of shots from Dallas tonight.

#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. Remember - I gave some tips last week on numbers that I look for, and these players check most (if not all my boxes):

Nathan MacKinnon: COL - C (DK: $7.7K, FD: $8.9K)

Aleksander Barkov: FLA - C (DK: $6.5K, FD: $7.1K)

Taylor Hall: NJ- W (DK: $7.4K, FD: $7.8K)

Jonathan Marchessault: VGK - W (DK: $7.1K, FD: $7.1K)

Victor Hedman: TB - D (DK: $5.8K, FD: $6.2K)

Shayne Gostisbehere: PHI - D (DK: $6K, FD: $6.4K)

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.

Mika Zibanejad: NYR– C (DK: $5.5K, FD: $6.2K)

Derek Stepan: ARI– C (DK: $4.5K, FD: $5.8K)

Ryan Nugent-Hopkins: EDM - W (DK: $5.3K, FD: $6.2K)

Derick Brassard: PIT - W (DK: $4.9K, FD: $4.4K)

Oliver Ekman-Larsson: ARI - D (DK: $4.3K, FD: $4.9K)

Shea Theodore: VGK - D (DK: $4.6K, FD: $4.1K)

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.

Filip Chytil: NYR - C (DK: $3K, FD: $3.6K)

Richard Panik: ARI- W (DK: $3.6K, FD: $4.2K)

Rasmus Dahlin: BUF - D (DK: $3.9K, FD: $4.5K)

Miro Heiskanen: DAL - D (DK: $3.2K, FD: $3.8K)

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:

COL:  Landeskog-Mackinnon-Rantanen (DK: $20K, FD: $21.7K)

A couple things that jumped out for me, the Rangers are giving up 17.6 fantasy points on DraftKings (64.1 points on FanDuel) to the opposing top line. Also, all three play on the top powerplay unit and face a Ranger team that has a 75% PK%.

VAN: Baertschi-Horvat-Boeser (DK: $16.2K, FD: $17.1K)

Pittsburgh has been allowing 3.9 goals a game, which is second worst on the slate and a slate worst 73.2% high-danger save percentage. This was a favorite stack of mine to run last year, so I hope it stays together at morning skate.

FLA: Dadonov-Barkov-Bjugstad (DK: $17.4K, FD: $18.9K)

Probably my favorite stack on the slate. Philly is allowing a slate worst 16.2 high danger shot attempts a game, is short-handed 4.4 times per game, and is allowing 4 goals a game. Keep an eye on Bjugstad to make sure he plays.

Risk-It-For-The-Biscuit Stack 🍪

ARI: Panik-Stepan-Keller: (DK: $13.2K, FD: $16K)

I'm sorry. I keep going back to the Yotes well, but they're just so cheap. I also think they've been extremely unlucky so far this season. Outside of goals scored, their numbers actually look really good. 67.1 Corsi For per game with a 60.2 CF% and 32.1 scoring chances per game. They're going to break out at some point and I'm going to keep going back to the well until they do.

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