Written by LineStar Fantasy Life Coach @ZeroInDenver

Welcome back to the NHL Hat Trick.

It's a holiday week, so here's a head's up of what to expect:

• Monday - 9 game slate - Newsletter

• Tuesday - 1 game - No newsletter

• Wednesday - 14 game slate - Newsletter

• Thursday - No games scheduled

• Friday - 8 game main slate - Newsletter

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:

✅ Carter Hutton vs ✅ Casey DeSmith

🅿️ Ben Bishop vs ✅ Henrik Lundqvist

✅ Sergei Bobrovsky vs ✅ Frederik Andersen

✅ Phoenix Copley vs ✅ Carey Price

✅ James Reimer vs ✅ Craig Anderson

✅ Cal Petersen vs ✅ Jake Allen

🅿️ Louis Domingue vs ✅ Pekka Rinne

🅿️ Marc-Andre Fleury vs ✅ BIG SAVE DAVE Rittich

✅ Connor Hellebuyck vs ✅ Jacob Markstrom

Injuries:

• Sidney Crosby out 🚑

• Carl Gunnarsson out 🚑

• Jaden Schwartz out 🚑

• Alexander Steen out 🚑

• Chris Wideman out 🚑

• Mats Zuccarello out 🚑

• Oliver Bjorkstrand out ❌

• Cedric Paquette out ❌

• Anton Stralman out 🚑

• TJ Oshie out 🚑

• Evgeny Kuznetsov out 🚑

Let me know if you find this info useful. 9 games tonight, 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:

Pekka Rinne, NSH (vs TB) (DK: $8K, FD: $9.2K)

Rinne gets a tough matchup tonight against the Lightning, but has been really good over the past month and really good on home ice. He has a 1.33 goals against average and .954 save percentage over the past month. This is where I'll be going when spending up in net tonight.

Henrik Lundqvist, NYR (vs DAL) (DK: $7.3K, FD: $8K)

Lundqvist has also been good on home ice and gets a good matchup against a Dallas team that is only scoring 2.3 goals a game over their last 10 games.

Cal Petersen, LAK (vs STL) (DK: $6.9K, FD: $7.4K)

This is a tough matchup, but I'm willing to risk it for his price. St. Louis is only scoring 1.8 goals a game in their last 5 games, so I'm hoping that this gamble could pay off against a slumping Blues team.

#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):

Sean Monahan: CGY - C (DK: $6.4K, FD: $7.8K)

Hard not to like a dude that plays on the top line and powerplay unit and gets 3.8 shots on net a night against a team that's allowing 3.2 goals a game over their last 5.

Jeff Skinner: BUF - LW (DK: $6.4K, FD: $6.7K)

You guys said that I should keep putting people in the write ups if I still like them. So here he is again.

Mark Stone: OTT - RW (DK: $6.5K, FD: $6.7K)

Stone is shooting the puck more and gets a good matchup against Reimer, who is averaging 3.03 goals allowed per game.

Thomas Chabot: OTT - D (DK: $6.2K, FD: $5.1K)

It feels like a few years ago where I felt that I had to play Brent Burns every night due to how much he shot the puck and his upside. Now, I'm putting Chabot in my lineups every night, especially on FanDuel, where pricing hasn't yet caught up with his production.

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.

Bo Horvat: VAN - C (DK: $5.5K, FD: $5.9K)

Winnipeg doesn't allow a lot of goals, but Horvat is super talented and getting 3 shots on net a game over the past 5 games.

Filip Chytil: NYR - LW (DK: $4.1K, FD: $3.6K)

Good value for someone that's playing on the top line and top powerplay unit for the Rangers.

Patric Hornqvist: PIT - RW (DK: $5.5K, FD: $5.8K)

Hornqvist has been averaging 4.8 shots on net a game with a 67 CF% and plays on the top powerplay unit for Pittsburgh.

Aaron Ekblad: FLA - D (DK: $4.4K, FD: $4.5K)

Good value for a D that's getting almost 23 minutes of ice time and shooting the puck more over his past 5 with 2.8 shots on net a game.

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.

Phillip Danault: MON - C (DK: $3.9K, FD: $4.8K)

Zach Hyman: TOR - LW (DK: $3.8K, FD: $4.3K)

Drake Batherson: OTT - RW (DK: $4K, FD: $3.2K)

Ben Hutton: VAN - D (DK: $3.7K, FD: $4K)

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:

BUF: Skinner-Eichel-Pominville(DK: $18K, FD: $18.7K)

Pominville is back on the top line. In 128 minutes of 5v5, this line has 91 shots on net and 15 goals.

NSH: Forsberg-Johansen-Smith: (DK: $16.3K, FD: $19.1K)

On tonight's slate, Tampa has given up the most fantasy points to the opposing top line. Let's hope Forsberg Tuesday is a day early.

CGY: Gaudreau-Monahan-Lindholm: (DK: $18.1K, FD: $22K)

The Flames get a good matchup at home against a Vegas team that played last night.

Risk-It-For-The-Biscuit Stack 🍪

OTT: Boedker-Duchene-Batherson (DK: $13.7K, FD: $13.6K)

Biscuit stack for a couple reasons.

1. I get to mention Drizzy Bath. He's not going to stay this cheap for long.

2. They're cheap. you can pretty much stack whoever you want with them.

3. In 14 minutes of 5v5, they have 2 goals and 9 shots on net.

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