Written by LineStar Fantasy Life Coach @ZeroInDenver

Welcome back to the NHL Hat Trick.

We've got 6 games on the slate tonight. There's some obvious standouts like Colorado, Boston, and Toronto, but the best DFS advice I ever got was from the budaman who told me "what's supposed to happen usually don't." So keep that in mind while building lineups for tonight.

Here's how today's slate looks from a high-level, looking at numbers for each team over the past 10 games:

Before we dive in, let's recap what we know so far this morning:

Starting Goalies:

✅ Tukka Rask vs ✅ Ben Bishop

✅ Carter Hutton vs ✅ Laurent Brossoit

🅿️ Cal Petersen vs ✅ Corey Crawford

✅ Phoenix Copley vs ✅ Philip Grubauer

✅ Jake Allen vs ✅ Marc-Andre Fleury

🅿️ Garret Sparks vs 🅿️ John Gibson

Injuries:

• Zdeno Chara out 🚑

• Charlie McAvoy out 🚑

• Kevan Miller out 🚑

• Brandon Carlo out 🚑

• Urho Vaakanienen out 🚑

• John Moore out 🚑

• Evgeny Kuznetsov out 🚑

• Braden Holtby out 🚑

• T.J. Oshie out 🚑

• Matthew Nieto out 🚑

• Nikita Zadorov healthy scratch ❌

Like I said, 6 games so LET'S GO.

Goaltending

Playing cash games? Fill in your goalie spot first. Playing tournaments? Fill your skater positions and pick the goaltender with the biggest upside for the least amount of salary. Here are my three favorite goaltenders on the night:

Philip Grubauer, COL (vs ) (DK: $7.7K, FD: $7.4K)

I expect Grubauer to be the highest-owned goalie on the slate for a number of reasons. If you like the revenge narrative, he gets a chance to face his former team tonight. Also, the Capitals have lost three of their last four and are missing key players in Oshie, Kuznetsov, and Holtby. His numbers aren't great over the past month, but he's arguably one of the "safer" plays on the slate.

Laurent Brossoit, WPG (vs BUF) (DK: $8.2K, FD: $7.4K)

Don't like him as much for the price on DraftKings, but I'm fine with getting a little wild on FanDuel with him, especially in larger field GPPs. Despite a great start to the year, it's still a little risky in that he hasn't started since October 26.

Corey Crawford, CHI (vs LA) (DK: $8.1K, FD: $7.8K)

Another example of "what should happen." The Kings have only averaged 2 goals a game over the past 10 games. Crawford hasn't been great, but he was perfect his last time out against St, Louis.

#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):

Mark Scheifele: WPG - C (DK: $7.1K, FD: $8K)

I love stacking the top line for Winnipeg pretty much any night they take the ice and love Scheifele as a one off as well. He has 4 goals and 3 assists on 10 shots on goal over the past week.

Jeff Skinner: BUF - LW (DK: $6.7K, FD: $6.6K)

One of the top scorers in the league with 13 goals in 18 games this season. He's averaging 4 shots on goal over the past 5 games.

Alexander Radulov: DAL - RW (DK: $6.9K, FD: $6K)

Radulov had 1 goal on 5 shots when returning earlier this week against Columbus and he's a personal favorite against Tuukka Rask tonight.

Brent Seabrook: CHI - D (DK: $5.2K, FD: $4.6K)

Checks my boxes with 2.4 shots and 2.4 blocks over the past 5 games and gets a solid matchup against a tanking Kings team.

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: $5K, FD: $5.9K)

I've had a lot more interest in Kadri lately with Matthews out of the lineup and there's definitely been an increase in his fantasy production over the last 5 games compared to his last 20.

Max Pacioretty: VGK - LW (DK: $4.9K, FD: $5.6K)

Averaging 3 shots on net and plays on the top powerplay unit for Vegas.

Ondrej Kase: ANH - RW (DK: $4.1K, FD: $3K)

Kase had 4 shots on net and 7 shots on net in his first two games back from injury. He's min-priced on FanDuel, but a worthy punt on both sites.

Colin Miller: VGK - D (DK: $4.3K, FD: $4.4K)

A bit cheaper than Seabrook, but checks the same boxes. 2.2 shots and 1.8 blocks on average per game and plays on the second powerplay unit for Vegas.

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 tonight.

Lars Eller: WAS - C (DK: $4.1K, FD: $4.2K)

THE GREAT TYSON JOST: COL - LW (DK: $3.2K, FD: $3.6K)

Kyle Okposo: BUF - LW (DK: $3.8K, FD: $5.3K) **DK Only**

Brandon Montour: ANH - D (DK: $3.5K, FD: $3.9K)

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.

I’m going to try something a little bit different with stacks. I’m going to present my personal favorite, as well as a value stack, and one with the best matchup. Here are my three favorite stacks on the night:

DAL: Benn-Seguin-Radulov(DK: $19.8K, FD: $21.3K)

My biggest fear is that they get split up mid-game if they get behind tonight.

COL: Landeskog-Mackinnon-Rantanen: (DK: $21.3K, FD: $22.8K)

So many reasons to like this line tonight. I can never properly gauge ownership. I usually feel like people will fade them, just because they expect a player or stack to be high-owned, and then it isn't because everyone was afraid of stacking chalk, which ends up making it contrarian. 😂

BOS: Marchand-Bergeron-Pastrnak: (DK: $21.3K, FD: $24.8K)

Wrapping up the theme of three-headed monster stacks and "what's supposed to happen." Ben Bishop wasn't good his last time out and hasn't been great against Boston in two starts against him in 2016.

Risk-It-For-The-Biscuit Stack 🍪

WAS: Ovechkin-Eller-Wilson (DK: $15.7K, FD: $17.5K)

If everyone's going to be on Grubauer tonight, I'm going to go the other way in a few lineups in case that was a terrible decision. Eller has been a punt god for me in the past, so I'm interested in seeing what he does centering the line with Ovi.

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