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.

We're back at it with 6 games on tap for tonight.

LETSSGOOOOOO!!!!!!!

Tonight's Slate

Here are the team numbers for tonight's slate:

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

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

Elvis Merzlikins - CLS (DK: $7800, FD: $7800)

SPOILER: The Jackets are one of my favorite stacks for tonight, so I'm looking for that goalie correlation/win equity, but love him as a standalone pick as well.

Center

My favorite:

Roope Hintz -DAL (DK: $5400, FD: $6000)

I still have very little faith in the Avs's goaltending this year so I want some of Dallas tonight.

Wing

My favorite:

Oliver Bjorkstrand - CLS (DK: $7400, FD: $6800)

Bjorkstrand has amazing peripherals, but we haven't caught a ceiling game from him yet. Here's to hoping tonight is the night!

Defensemen

My favorite:

Cale Makar - COL (DK: $7200, FD: $7100)

Makar ranks highest for D-men for me tonight and I think he's a solid choice where he's been a strong candidate for catching the 5-shot bonus on DraftKings each night.

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:

Ondrej Kase - VAN (DK: $2500, FD: $3600)

Kase has been a staple here, and I like him tonight against the Sharks.

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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