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. In case you missed it, the Golden Knights have acquired Jack Eichel and a conditional pick from the Buffalo Sabres in exchange for Alex Tuch, Peyton Krebs, and two conditional picks.

From what I've gathered, it's expected that Eichel will undergo surgery for his neck soon and could be back on the ice in as early as 4 months. Exciting stuff, but we have 9-games on tap for tonight. Let's jump right 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:

Ilya Sorokin - NYI (DK: $8200, FD: $8500)

Sorokin is not confirmed. If he doesn't start, I would lean Grubauer.

Center

My favorite:

Josh Norris - OTT (DK: $6000, FD: $6200)

The question is, how do you fit in Matthews? You're going to have to spend down, and I'm looking at Norris. He isn't cheap, but I love the shot volume and scoring chances he's been seeing each night.

Wing

My favorite:

Matthew Tkachuk - CGY (DK: $6800, FD: $6800)

If you love revenge narratives, then I have the play for you. There were heavy rumors that Tkachuk was going to be traded for Eichel. Think that's enough for Tkachuk to go out and show Calgary brass what a mistake that would have been? Well, there you go.

Defensemen

My favorite:

Noah Hanifin - CGY (DK: $3200, FD: $3500)

Lots of good value in defensemen tonight. I'll have all of these, but my favorite is Hanifin. Great price for his shot volume.

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:

Brandon Saad - STL (DK: $3700, FD: $4400)

The Blues disappointed last night but going to pick some one offs from St Louis for tonight's slate.

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 PHI1.

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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