Written by LineStar Fantasy Life Coach @ZeroInDenver. Got NHL DFS questions or want to see something covered in this newsletter? Hit me up in LineStar Chat.

Welcome back to the NHL Hat Trick.

This doesn't happen very often, but we get an 8-game slate on a Friday. I'm going to keep this short today as I have some family obligations for the holidays, so let me give you the most info I can in the shortest amount of time.

Here's a look at how teams have performed over the last 10 games:

Need help narrowing it down? Here's my top projected goals for and goals allowed for the slate tonight:

Heads up - at the time of this writing, a few goalies have NOT been confirmed. Keep an eye on chat for updates throughout the day.

✅ Jaroslav Halak vs ✅ Casey DeSmith

✅ Marc-Andre Fleury vs ✅ Corey Schneider

🅿️ Darcy Kuemper vs 🅿️ Henrik Lundqvist

✅ Craig Anderson vs 🅿️ Jimmy Howard

🅿️ Braden Holtby vs 🅿️ Petr Mrazek

✅ Philipp Grubauer vs ✅ Jake Allen

🅿️ Connor Hellebuyck vs ✅ Corey Crawford

✅ Anthony Stolarz vs ✅ Mikko Koskinen

In other news, Taylor Hall is a GTD for New Jersey tonight.

The Rangers are expected to get Zuccarello and Buchnevich back in the lineup tonight.

Keep an eye on chat for updates throughout the day.

Now, lets look at my favorites on the slate:

Goaltending

So as most of you know, I'm a heavy GPP player. So I'm approaching goalie selection purely looking at upside for tonight. I'll be leaning heavily on goaltenders that will be facing a high volume of shots tonight, as they'll have some of the biggest upside if they can limit goals and pick up a win.

Here are my three favorite goaltenders on the night:

Braden Holtby (@ CAR) (DK: $8.3K, FD: $8.9K)

Holtby feels like the obvious play tonight and I'm not going to overthink it too much. Holtby has been great over the past month, and Carolina is struggling to score goals.

Marc-Andre Fleury, VGK (@ NJ) (DK: $7.6K, FD: $8.9K)

Fleury is the next-best obvious choice tonight. Hall is a GTD for New Jersey and Fleury gets a decent matchup against a New Jersey team that is averaging 32.5 shots on net over the last 10 games.

Jimmy Howard, DET (vs OTT) (DK: $7.8K, FD: $8.4K)

Ottawa hasn't been scoring goals much lately (2.68 goals a game over the last 10) and Howard has a 2.33 GAA and .927 save percentage over the last month.

#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):

Dylan Larkin: DET - C (DK: $6.5K, FD: $6.7K)

In a pool of top tier centers like McDavid, MacKinnon and Scheifele tonight, I like Larkin the best. Don't get me wrong, all are good choices tonight, but Larkin comes in a solid savings over the others and has 6.8 shot attempts (2.2 high danger) and 4.2 shots on net over his past 5 games and faces an Ottawa team that is allowing 3.08 goals a game over their last 10.

Alex Ovechkin: WAS - W (DK: $8.2K, FD: $9K)

Most expensive, but favorite winger on the slate. Averaging 8.2 shot attempts with 4.4 shots on net with an insane 27% Sh% over his last 54 games.

Kris Letang: PIT - D (DK: $6.4K, FD: $6.7K)

Ok. So Letang really didn't do anything to help my cause the other night, but I'm going back to the well tonight. In over 26 minutes of ice time, he's averaging 8 shot attempts with 4.2 shots on net over his last 5 games.

Value Twigs 💲

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.

Ryan Nugent-Hopkins: EDM C (DK: $5.3K, FD: $5.5K)

Philly has been giving up 4.18 goals a game over their last 10, so I'll have healthy exposure to Edmonton tonight. Love RNH, as he's been averaging 4.6 shot attempts (1.8 high danger) and 3.6 shots on net over his last 5 games and gets time on the top powerplay unit for Edmonton.

Marcus Johansson: NJ - W (DK: $4.3K, FD: $3.7K)

Hall is GTD so keep an eye on NJ lines during warmups, but I like Johansson today. He's averaging 5.8 shot attempts (1.8 high danger) with 3.6 shots on net a game over his last 5.

Nate Schmidt: VGK - D (DK: $4.1K, FD: $3.9K)

Nasty Nate has been averaging 22 minutes with 5.8 shot attempts, 2.4 shots on net, and 1.4 blocks over his last 5 games.

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.

Lucas Wallmark: CAR - C (DK: $3.6K, FD: $3.2K)

Matt Nieto: COL- W (DK: $2.8K, FD: $3.3K)

Jordan Oesterle : ARI - D (DK: $3.2K, FD: $3.6K)

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 list two of the the highest-owned stacks, two of my favorite stacks, and two "biscuit" (high risk, high reward) stacks:

High-Ownership (Based on LineStar Ownership Projections):

WPG: Marchessault-Karlsson-Reilly Smith (DK: $16.6K, FD: $19.2K)

EDM: Chiasson-McDavid-Draisaitl (DK: $18.5K, FD: $20.7K)

Favorite stacks:

COL: Landeskog-Mackinnon-Rantanen (DK: $23.2K FD: $24.3K)

WAS: Ovechkin-Backstrom-Oshie (DK: $21.2K FD: $22.5K)

Biscuit stacks (high risk, high upside):

DET: Nyquist-Larkin-Abdelkader (DK: $16K FD: $17.1K)

NYR: Chytil-Zibanejad-Zuccarello (DK: $14.5K FD: $16.6K)

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