Written by LineStar Fantasy Wizard @ZeroInDenver

Welcome to the NHL Hat Trick. I’ve been looking forward to the opening of the NHL season for months and it’s finally here.

If you’re new to NHL DFS, I’m going to break it down for you. My plan is to give a few nuggets of info and strategy in these each week, but today I’ll focus on what you need to know to build a lineup.

For those of you who play a lot of MLB DFS, you’ll find that NHL strategy is very similar. Selecting goaltenders is very similar to picking a pitcher. I’m going to overgeneralize, but most nights you’re going to look for a goaltender that’s going to get 30+ saves, give up 2 goals or less, and get the win. The win bonus can be huge and sometimes the difference between cashing and not cashing.

With your skaters, you’re looking for players with a good chance to get a goal or assist. In a nutshell, this means looking for players who get a lot of ice time and take a lot of shots on goal (or play with a skater that does). Line stacking (focusing on players that skate on the same forward line or power play line) is a common strategy, especially in GPP. The reason for this is you have a potential of 7.5 fantasy points on each goal on DraftKings (29.6 points on FanDuel) if you have the player that gets the goal in your lineup and each player that picks up the assist. Overall, in cash games, you’ll be looking for 30-35 points on DraftKings (around 140-160 points on FanDuel) to win your double-ups most nights and 50-60 points on DraftKings (200+ points on FanDuel) to win or place in the top 5% of GPPs most nights.

Again, we’ll get more into strategy as we get into the season, but this will give you the basics to build a lineup for tonight’s slate.

That said, let’s look at who I have a lot of interest in tonight:

High Priced Goaltending

Frederick Andersen, TOR (vs MON) (DK: $8.4K, FD: $8.4K)

Being the first game of the season, we don't have any data to go off of. I don't like relying on last season's data, and I don't care for preseason numbers either. That said, there's a lot of excitement and high expectations in Toronto for the home opener. Toronto picked up John Tavares over the off-season and Toronto *should* beat a depleted Montreal team.

Value Goaltending

Mike Smith, CGY (@ VAN) (DK: $7.5K, FD: $7.9K)

Just a warning, the Canucks are my San Diego Padres in hockey. They have a lot of young talent, but they're rebuilding. They were not good in preseason, and I don't expect them to do well during the regular season. This is why, if I'm going to spend down, I'm going to roster Mike Smith.

#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.

John Tavares: TOR – C (DK: $7.4K, FD: $8.3K)

The most expensive player on the slate, but I think he'll be worth paying for tonight as he suits up in his hometown for the team he cheered for growing up.

David Pastrnak: BOS - W (DK: $7.5K, FD: $6.2K)

The top line for Boston is expensive, but I think Pastrnak makes for a great one-off if you're looking for exposure to that line.

Erik Karlsson: SJ - D (DK: $6.9K, FD: $7.1K)

Karlsson is actually the top-ranked skater according to my personal model. Sharks also have the second-highest implied total on the night and Karlsson isn't afraid to shoot the puck.

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.

Nazem Kadri: TOR – C (DK: $5.1K, FD: $5.8K)

I feel that Kadri will go overlooked with Matthews and Tavares centering the top two lines for Toronto, but I like Kadri because he'll still get power play time and has been averaging almost 3 high-danger scoring chances a game over the last 5 games last season.

Brendan Gallagher: MON - W (DK: $5.4K, FD: $6.3K)

Gallagher was one of my favorite Habs to play in DFS last season because he's almost always underpriced, he gets a good number of scoring chances, and he shoots the puck a lot.

Cam Fowler: ANH- D (DK: $5.1K, FD: $5K)

Pretty much checks all the boxes in what I look for in a mid-priced defenseman. Gets over 23 minutes, plays on the top power play unit, and is in the 90th percentile of defensemen on the slate in terms of shots on goal plus blocked shots.

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.

Josh Manson: ANH - D (DK: $3.3K, FD: $3.8K)

Jake Virtanen: VAN - W (DK: $3K, FD: $3.5K)

Lars Eller: WAS - W (DK: $4.1K, FD: $4.3K)

Line Stacks

Alex Ovechkin-Evgeny Kuznetsov-Brett Connolly (DK: $17.9K, FD: $19.5K)

Again, first game of the season so we don't have a lot to really go on other than narratives. And what better narrative than the Caps raising the banner on the first game of the regular season?

Zach Hyman-John Tavares-Mitch Marner (DK: $17.9K, FD: $19.5K)

I'm going to double-down on the "Tavares in Toronto" narrative. The Matthews line is cheaper, and could be just as productive (if not more), but I'm just going to hope everyone goes the Matthews way and gets burnt. Sorry not sorry.

Rickard Rakell-Ryan Getzlaf-Troy Terry (DK: $15.4K, FD: $17.6K)

I expect this to be one of the lower-owned top line stacks of the night. I'm also going to admit to a little bit of homerism with THE GREAT TROY TERRY who played three seasons at the University of Denver, helped lead the US Junior team to a gold medal, and played in last year's Olympics. So get used to hearing that name.

Risk-It-For-The-Biscuit Stack 🍪

Tomas Tatar-Phillip Danault-Brendan Gallagher: (DK: $14K, FD: $15.6K)

On a 4-game slate, I'm going to get a little cuter than I probably would normally. After all, the point of the "risk-it-for-the-biscuit" stack is to pick a low-owned stack that could go off. So if you play this stack, kiss your money goodbye and hope for the best.

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