Written by LineStar Fantasy Wizard @ZeroInDenver.

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Welcome to the NHL Hat Trick.

If you're a Devils fan, tonight is an exciting night. Taylor Hall is back. P.K. Subban and Wayne Simmonds joined New Jersey over the off-season and Jack Hughes makes his regular season debut. I'm also going to ruin this for you now: lock in Hughes. He's an elite talent and will be fun to watch. But before we get into tonight's 4-game slate, let's look at last night.

Congrats if you stacked the Rangers or Jets. That was the highest scoring game on the slate with 10 goals between the two teams. On DraftKings, ThirlbyM14 took the top spot in the Puck Drop Encore for $25,000 with a Rangers stack of Zibanejad, Panarin, and Trouba. He paired that with a Tampa Bay stack of Killorn, Palat, Shattenkirk and Hedman.

On FanDuel, jtorture78 won the Breakaway for $20,000 with a game stack of Rangers and Jets,

Both stacks used Gibson in net and both were 4-3 stacks, meaning 4 players from one team and 3 players from another. Now for me, I've been getting away from doing straight line stacks in my lineups. We've talked about this in chat a bit, but I think this limits your lineup a little. For example, if you stacked the first line for the Rangers, you'd get 44.60 fantasy points from Zibanejad, 15 fantasy points from Panarin, but only 2.6 points from Buchnevich. Instead, I think it might be better to make better stacks. Like the winning lineups above, I think going Trouba over Buchnevich makes sense. It's something that I've been testing, and I'm finding better results by building better stacks and not leaving it as simple full-line stacks. What do you guys think?

In case you missed it, DraftKings updated their scoring for NHL. I have to say that I like the changes. It's not just the higher scoring either. I'm really liking the new bonuses.

Here's the new scoring on DraftKings:

Tonight's Targets

If you remember last year, I had a lot of fancy graphs that I used to rank players at each position where you could get a visual indication of how they match up. That's coming, but I need some data. So it's coming, but give it a couple weeks.

4 game main slate today. Let's take a look at some of my favorites:

Goaltender

Frederik Andersen - TOR (DK: $8200, FD: $8800)

The first thing you're probably going to ask is "why not Fleury?" While San Jose lost badly to Vegas a couple nights ago, they were on the road and Vegas looked a little sloppy at times. Plus, I'm going to chase that 35+ Save bonus on DraftKings, as I expect Columbus to put more shots on net. So I'm going to spend up slightly, hoping others don't or can't and hope it pays off.

Center

Jack Hughes - NJD (DK: $4700, FD: $5500)

Like I mentioned before. I'm going to lock him in tonight. Maybe he serves a donut, but if he plays to his potential, he won't be at this price for long. Plus, you should be able to afford a top-tier center with him in your lineups. It's a risk worth taking to me.

Wing

Max Pacioretty - VGK (DK: $5700, FD: $7000)

He's priced better on DraftKings, but not terrible on FanDuel.

Patches couldn't buy a goal a couple nights ago and it wasn't from a lack of trying. He was throwing the puck at net every chance he got. It just didn't go in. Why risk a fade and having him get a hatty tonight?

Defensemen

Tyson Barrie - TOR (DK: $5600, FD: $6300)

If you caught my season preview and strategy guide, I mention how I look for defensemen that get 23+ minutes of ice time, shoot the puck, block the puck, and get power play time. Barrie checks all those boxes. But one thing I didn't mention is that he's in that sweet spot of pricing. I've found that defensemen priced at $4500-$6000 tend to exceed projections more than any other pricing tier.

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.

Cody Glass: VGK - C (DK: $3.5K, FD: $4.5K)

Nikita Gusev: NJD - W (DK: $4.1K, FD: $4.2)

David Savard: CLS- D (DK: $3.4K, FD: $3.7K)

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.

Here are some of my favorite stacks for tonight:

RISK IT FOR THE BISCUIT STACK

This is my low ownership, high risk, and high upside stack. Like I said, I'm all over the Jack Hughes hype train and I think Nikita Gusev goes overlooked too.

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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