Written by LineStar Fantasy Life Coach @ZeroInDenver

Welcome back to the NHL Hat Trick.

I've been waiting a long time to use that subject line. I'm not all in on the Bolts, but I'm definitely going to have some exposure tonight. Anyway, here's how we're looking from a high level:

A few thoughts on the slate overall:

For all the talk on how good Montreal has been, the Drouin line has been terrible defensively. I think Drouin had a -4 +/- the other night. So I'm definitely going to have some Buffalo exposure tonight.

Islanders have terrible puck possession numbers, while Tampa has been averaging over 60 shot attempts a game. This could be bad for the Islanders. Ride the Lightning ⚡️

Chicago plays its first game since firing their coach. Carolina burned me the other night, but I feel like going back to the well. They have an insane 61.9 CF%. Again, what can go wrong?

With all that said, let’s dive into the slate:

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:

Jaroslav Halak, BOS (vs VAN) (DK: $8.2K, FD: $8.2K)

Halak has been pretty solid this year. He's heavily favored with a good matchup at home against Vancouver. Chalk but whatevs.

Roberto Luongo, FLA (vs EDM) (DK: $7.3K, FD: $7.7K)

Here's one you probably didn't expect, but Luongo has come up in a lot of my early builds. He played well against Winnipeg since returning from injury and I'm willing to risk it against an Edmonton team that looked pretty lifeless their last time out against Tampa.

Jack Campbell; LA (vs MIN) (DK: $7.5K, FD: $8.3K)

Campbell has done well filling in for the injured Quick over the past month, with a 2.2 goals against average and .918 save percentage. Not outstanding, but about what I'd expect from the price.

#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):

Steven Stamkos: TB - C (DK: $7.2K, FD: $8.2K)

Ride the Lightning. 4 shots on goal and a 64 CF% over the last 5 games.

Jeff Skinner: BUF - LW (DK: $7K, FD: $6.7K)

Like I mentioned before, Montreal has been pretty awful on defense recently so I'm going to look at Buffalo tonight. Skinner has a 70 CF% and 4.4 shots a game over the past 5 games.

Nikita Kucherov: TB - LW (DK: $7.3K, FD: $8.2K)

Ride the Lightning. Kucherov has a 64 CF% and 3.8 shots on net a game. If you can afford it, I love him and Stamkos as a pair tonight.

Thomas Chabot: OTT - D (DK: $6.5K, FD: $4.7K)

A bit of a steal on FanDuel tonight. He's averaging 4 shots on net a game and 7.2 shot attempts on over 23 minutes of ice time a game.

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.

Joe Pavelski: SJS - C (DK: $5.4K, FD: $7K)

Too expensive on FanDuel, but is averaging 3.6 shots a game and over 20 minutes over the past 5 games while skating on the top line and top powerplay unit.

Michael Ferland: CAR - LW (DK: $6K, FD: $5.6K)

I mentioned my interest in Carolina and the top line for Carolina will definitely end up in several lineups of mine tonight. Averaging 3.8 shots a game with a 64 CF%.

Dustin Brown: LA- RW (DK: $5.4K, FD: $6.1K)

Brown is averaging 3 shots a game and has a 75% shots on target rate, meaning that 75% of his shot attempts end up on net.

Colin Miller: VGK - D (DK: $4K, FD: $4.2K)

2.8 shots on goal per game with 20 minutes of ice time and slots on the second Power Play

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.

Colin White: OTT - C (DK: $3.8K, FD: $3.2K)

Jake Virtanen: VAN- LW (DK: $3.5K, FD: $3.9K)

Alex Killorn: TB - RW (DK: $3.7K, FD: $4.1K)

Ben Hutton: VAN - D (DK: $3.4K, FD: $3.8K)

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 they are for tonight:

CAR: Ferland-Aho-Teravainen (DK: $18.2K, FD: $17.3K)

Ever been a day early on a stack? You stack a team or line one day only for them to throw a dud but they go off the next game. For as much as I loved them last time out, I hope they produce tonight. Together in 149 minutes together on 5v5 they have a 56 CF% with 10 goals.

FLA: Dadonov-Barkov-Hoffman: (DK: $19.1K, FD: $19.3K)

Good history versus the Islanders and will probably go overlooked on tonight's slate.

BUF: Skinner-Eichel-Pominville: (DK: $20K, FD: $19.1K)

Buffalo has been averaging a solid 35.9 shots on net a game and are facing a Montreal team that as a team has a mediocre .894 save percentage and 3.16 goals allowed a game over the last 10 games.

Risk-It-For-The-Biscuit Stack 🍪

VGK: Pacioretty-Eakin-Tuch (DK: $14.2K, FD: $14.7K)

I've got interest in Vegas tonight at Ottawa and while the Reilly-Karlsson-Marchessault line is interesting, they're expensive and haven't done much from fantasy perspective this year. So lets drop to the second line and cross our fingers.

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