Written by LineStar Fantasy Wizard @ZeroInDenver.

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Welcome to the NHL Hat Trick.

We get a nine-game slate tonight. There's a lot to look at, but first let's look at last night.

Good on you if you stacked Sharks and Anaheim - specifically if you had Kane and Hertl from San Jose and Rakell and Henrique from Anaheim. That was the nuts if you had them together. lsupol took down the Prime Time Playmaker on DraftKings with a 4-3 stack of Anaheim and San Jose with a Vocacek one-off.

On FanDuel, ivanage took the top spot in the Breakaway tournament with a 3-3 stack of Anaheim and San Jose with Dominic Simon and John Carlson one-offs.

So stacks of at least 3 (3-3 and 4-3) continue to do well, but they're also very popular. To put it in perspective, I counted almost 4800 4-3 stacks in the DraftKings mini-max yesterday. There were almost 2400 3-3 stacks. In an 11,000 entry tournament, almost half the field did a 3-3 or 4-3 stack. That's a lot and it shouldn't be surprising that a few did well.

All that said, stacking is a risky endeavor. There are plenty of 4-3 lineups that didn't profit. If you're only entering one or even a handful of lineups, I don't know that it makes sense to go that heavy on any team. But maybe you live a YOLO life and have no regrets if your lineup bombs. What do you think? Has anyone changed their stacking strategy as the season has gone on? Hit me up in chat.

Tonight's Targets

Like I said at the beginning, we have a NINE-game slate tonight. Here's a high level look of team numbers for tonight:

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: Corsi is shot attempts that the team has taken and allowed. "Shot attempts" include shots that are blocked or miss the net. CF% is the ratio of shot attempts made to shot attempts allowed. Elite teams and lines will have a CF% of 60% or greater.

• HDCF60, HDCA60: This is High Danger Corsi For/60 minutes and High Danger Corsi Allowed/60 minutes. "High Danger" means shot attempts in the area closest to and in front of the goalie.

• SF60, SA60: This is Shots For/60 minutes and Shots Allowed/60 minutes. These are actual shots that hit the goal (or went in).

• SOT: Shots on target. This is the percentage of shots attempted that end up being a shot on goal.

• 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. This is an average of the goals scored or allowed over the last 10 games (in this case 1-3 games).

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

Marc-Andre Fleury - VGK (DK: $8400, FD: $8900)

Fleury is arguably the safest goaltender on the slate. He faces an Ottawa team that is scoring an average of 2.4 goals a game while allowing 3.8. There's a lot of win equity in Fleury and (SPOILER) I really like Vegas stacks tonight.

Centers

Mika Zibanejad -NYR (DK: $7800, FD: $7600)

Zibanejad is expensive, but should be popular tonight and for good reason. He's got a great matchup against a winless Devils team that is averaging 4.6 goals allowed so far this season. Zibanejad definitely has multi-goal upside which is an important factor when deciding to spend up tonight.

Wingers

Brendan Gallagher - MON (DK: $6700, FD: $7000)

Make no mistake, Pastrnak is the best play at wing tonight and should go well owned. But if you want to be a little different and save yourself some salary, I think Gallagher is the next best option.

Defensemen

Josh Morrissey - WPG (DK: $4600, FD: $4700)

I don't have any issue with rolling out of any of these defensemen, but I think Morrissey is great value for someone getting over 24 minutes a game, sits on the top power play line for Winnipeg and gets the puck on net almost 3 times a night.

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.

Mikael Backlund: CGY - C (DK: $4.5K, FD: $5K)

Anthony Duclair: ARI - W (DK: $3.7K, FD: $3.6K)

Tyler Myers: WPG - D (DK: $3.6K, FD: $4.2K)

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.

I'm going to do stacks a little differently moving forward. I'm going to provide you with the top projected owned stacks, my favorites, and the "risk it for the biscuit" stacks (high-upside, low ownership stacks. Along with these stacks you can compare their prices, see how LineStar projects them, as well as their combined average fantasy points per game over the last 5 games.

You can see that I really like Vegas. The Pacioretty line has been the most productive, but that can swing to the Marchessault line at any time. I think both lines end up being even in terms of ownership. If you're doing multiple lines, it wouldn't be a bad idea to have both lines stacked.

Keep in mind, these are my favorites. 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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