Written by LineStar Fantasy Life Coach @ZeroInDenver.

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Welcome to the NHL Hat Trick.

I hope NHL DFS has been treating you well.

5-games on tap for tonight. Let's dive in.

Tonight's Slate

Here are the team numbers for tonight's slate. Remember, this looks at times over their last 10 regular-season games, going back to the 2020-2021 season.

I mentioned this in chat, but I often use this to look for mismatches (teams that give up a lot of shots facing teams that take a lot of shots) and spots where both teams have sub 50% CF%. So if you're looking for "sneaky" stacks, that's where I start.

Tonight's Targets

Goaltender

**Not all goaltenders have been confirmed as starters at the time of this writing**

My preference is to correlate goalie with one of my stacks, but my favorite tonight is:

Marc-Andre Fleury - CHI (DK: $8500, FD: $7400)

This is the "smart" and "safe" choice, but we all know how that goes in DFS.

Center

My favorite:

Cole Sillinger - CLS (DK: $4200, FD: $4400)

Are we point chasing? Probably, but hard to find a top-line, top-power play center for under $4500 most nights.

Wing

My favorite:

Zach Hyman - EDM (DK: $6100, FD: $7000)

Hyman has been seeing a good number of opportunities to score each night. Take note, he's listed on the site as PP2, but everywhere else I've looked has him on PP1.

Defensemen

My favorite:

Zach Werenski - CLS (DK: $5700, FD: $4900)

My strategy has been to spend up on D-men on smaller slates so that I can focus on stacking cheaper (think 3rd line) forward lines. If you're spending up, Werenski is my favorite.

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?

Spending Down

Some people call these "value" plays or "salary savers", but 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.

My favorite:

Yegor Chinakhov - CLS (DK: $2500, FD: $3000)

Nailed it with Hartman last night, so let's keep the streak going and build an organic Jackets stack with Chinakhov, Werenski, and Sillinger.

Line Stacks

Before going further, let's make this clear:

You 👏 dont 👏 have 👏 to 👏 stack.

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 my favorite stacks (ranked in order of preference) for tonight:

And the RISK IT FOR THE BISCUIT stack... let's go with BUF1

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.

ZeroInDenver's Projected Ownership

Don't say I never do anything for y'all. Here are my top projected goalies and skaters. Assume anyone not listed is projected at 5% or less.

If this helps, let me know!

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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