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.

We get a decent 5-game slate tonight, but contests offered aren't great. There's no min-max on DraftKings and prize pools overall are a little pathetic. I believe both sites are doing large field GPPs for tomorrow's slate. Maybe that's a reason for the anemic contests today, but I'm going to play a little conservative tonight and save my effort for tomorrow.

With that said, let's dive in to today's slate. First, let's look at team numbers over the last 10 games from a high level:

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.

✅ John Gibson vs ✅ Casey DeSmith

🅿️ Marc-Andre Fleury vs ✅ Sergei Bobrovsky

🅿️ Pekka Rinne vs ✅ Craig Anderson

✅ Jaroslav Halak vs ✅ Carey Price

🅿️ Thomas Greiss vs 🅿️ Semyon Varlamov

In other news, Kris Letang is a GTD for Pittsburgh tonight.

Ryan Dzingel is a GTD for Ottawa tonight. Matt Duchene did not take rushes at morning skate, so it's unlikely that's he's back 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:

Craig Anderson (vs NSH) (DK: $6.9K, FD: $7.9K)

I feel like going for it tonight, which means rostering Anderson and hoping for the best. Nashville is a lot less scary without Arvidsson and Forsberg, so I'm willing to take a chance against a Nashville team that is scoring 2.66 goals a game on 30.5 shots on net over their last 10 games.

John Gibson, ANH (@ PIT) (DK: $7.3K, FD: $8.6K)

In what could be idiot move #2, I'm going to have a good number of shares of Anaheim tonight too. This is purely a "what if Pittsburgh doesn't show up" move. I don't normally play goalies against the Pens, and for good reason, but Gibson's numbers over the past month have been good: 2.18 goals against, .923 save percentage, and a 8-2 record.

Semyon Varlamov, COL (vs NYI) (DK: $8.3K, FD: $8.6K)

Another bit of a gutsy move, but the Islanders just aren't scoring a lot of goals. (Famous last words.) Over their last 10 games, the Islanders have only scored 2.05 goals a game on 27.3 shots.

#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):

Nathan MacKinnon: COL - C (DK: $8.2K, FD: $8.8K)

Maybe a bit obvious, and the least surprising, but my highest-rated skater on the slate. Averaging 8.2 shot attempts (2.6 high danger) with 5.2 shots on net over his last 5 games with a 66 CF%

Ondrej Kase: ANH - W (DK: $5.7K, FD: $4.6K)

Second-highest skater by my ranking on the slate tonight, in case you're wondering. Kase has a 63 CF% with 7.2 shot attempts (2.4 high danger) with 4.4 shots on net in his last 5 games.

Seth Jones: CLS - D (DK: $6.2K, FD: $5.7K)

I love rostering D that get over 25 minutes, sit on the top powerplay unit, and take a lot of shots, and Jones checks those boxes tonight.

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.

Mathew Barzal: NYI C (DK: $5.1K, FD: $5.8K)

Although I like Varlamov, he does carry some risk, and Colorado's defense has been a little sloppy at times. Meanwhile, Barzal is averaging 4.8 shot attempts (1.8 high danger) and 3.4 shots on net over his last 5 games.

Bryan Rust: PIT - W (DK: $4.1K, FD: $4.4K)

Rust is back on the top line with Crosby and Guentzel and is great value tonight on DraftKings. Rust is averaging 6 shot attempts (2 high danger) with 3.4 shots on net over his last 5 games.

Jeff Petry: MON - D (DK: $5K, FD: $4.6K)

Petry is up against a Boston team that is giving up 3.26 goals a game over their last 10 and is averaging 6.2 shot attempts with 3.4 shots on net in just under 22 minutes a game 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.

Carl Soderberg: CAR - C (DK: $3.9K, FD: $4.4K)

Ryan Donato: BOS- W (DK: $3.3K, FD: $3.3K)

Mike Reilly : MON - D (DK: $3.2K, FD: $3.7K)

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

High-Ownership (Based on LineStar Ownership Projections):

VGK: Marchessault-Karlsson-Smith (DK: $18.5K, FD: $19.4K)

COL: Landeskog-Mackinnon-Rantanen (DK: $23.8K, FD: $24.4K)

Favorite stacks:

CLS: Panarin-Dubois-Atkinson (DK: $19.2K FD: $20.6K)

PIT: Guentzel-Crosby-Rust (DK: $19K FD: $19.9K)

Biscuit stacks (high risk, high upside):

OTT: Tkachuk-White-Stone (DK: $15.3K FD: $15.5K)

MON: Drouin-Domi-Shaw (DK: $16.4K FD: $16.2K)

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