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.

9-games on tap for tonight so let's jump right in.

Tonight's Slate

Here's 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:

Jonathan Bernier - NJ (DK: $7700, FD: $7200)

I'm standing by my hot take that the Ducks make the playoffs, but Bernier is averaging over 38 saves a game so I'm hoping he can limit and make up for any damage.

Center

My favorite:

John Tavares - TOR (DK: $6700, FD: $7400)

Lots of interest in Toronto tonight and my focus will be around PP1 for the Leafs tonight.

Wing

My favorite:

Matthew Tkachuk - CGY (DK: $6600, FD: $6700)

Calgary is off to a good start and is averaging 3.7 goals a game over their last 10 regular season games so I want pieces from the top line for the Flames if I'm looking for one-offs.

Defensemen

My favorite:

Dougie Hamilton - NJ (DK: $7800, FD: $7100)

One of the most expensive, but I think there's a lot of cheap lines that are viable tonight that will allow you to spend up at D tonight.

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:

Evgeni Dadonov - VGK (DK: $3200, FD: $4100)

Toronto is allowing 3.3 goals a game over their last 10 regular-season games and Dadonov is a cheap piece that will get you PP1 exposure.

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.

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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