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.

I'm going to give you all a bit of a nugget that I'm surprised more people don't know. When contests fill, DraftKings will open up a new contest, usually much smaller in size, and sometimes with the same payout structure as the larger field GPP at the same price. For example, There's the $1 Hip Check on DraftKings that is a 20-max on 4161 total entries. This should fill anytime around 1-2 hours before lock. When it does, DraftKings will open a smaller field $1 GPP. Sometimes it will be 1500ish total entries or 1000ish total entries (sometimes even less).

Why does this matter? Obviously, you stand a better chance to win if you're competing against less people. Also, in some cases, you'll find that the payout to first is the same between the larger field and smaller field GPP.

The risk, of course, is that the initial GPP won't fill so they won't open another iteration of that contest. However, I've found that for the most part, if the GPP is close to filling around 2 hours before lock, they'll open a smaller version.

Anyway, I hope this helps. Often overlooked in DFS is contest selection. On most days, that can be as important as the lineups you build. Of course, if you have any additional thoughts or questions, be sure to hit me up in chat.

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:

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

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

🅿️ Roberto Luongo vs ✅ Frederik Andersen

✅ Devan Dubnyk vs 🅿️ Casey DeSmith

🅿️ Pekka Rinne vs ✅ Carter Hart

🅿️ John Gibson vs ✅ Jaroslav Halak

✅ Mackenzie Blackwood vs ✅ Sergei Bobrovsky

✅ Jonathan Bernier vs 🅿️ Petr Mrazek

✅ Cam Ward vs ✅ Ben Bishop

🅿️ Andrei Vasilevskiy vs ✅ David Rittich

✅ Carey Price vs 🅿️ Darcy Kuemper

🅿️ Jake Allen vs 🅿️ Jacob Markstrom

🅿️ Thomas Greiss vs 🅿️ Marc-Andre Fleury

🅿️ Connor Hellebuyck vs ✅ Martin Jones

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:

John Gibson (@ BOS) (DK: $7.6K, FD: $8.6K)

Always risky to roster a goalie against Boston, especially since I think Bergeron is expected to come back tonight, but I like Gibson a lot. He's priced right for the slate and his numbers have been great over the past month with a 2.17 GAA and a .924 save percentage.

Andrei Vasilevskiy, TB (@CGY) (DK: $7.9K, FD: $8.7K)

Vasilevskiy has been pretty solid since returning from injury. He has a 2.67 GAA and a .938 save percentage with a 2-0 record. He has a tough matchup against Calgary tonight, but I like his upside.

Casey DeSmith, PIT (vs MIN) (DK: $7.8K, FD: $8.3K)

DeSmith has been pretty good over the past month. 2.45 GAA and a .923 save percentage with a decent 10-6 record.

#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):

Sebastian Aho: CAR - C (DK: $5.7K, FD: $6.1K)

Top-ranked center on the slate tonight. Aho is averaging 7.6 shot attempts (2.2 high danger) with 4 shots on net in his last 5 games and is facing a Detroit team that is giving up 3.23 goals a game over their last 10 games.

Cam Atkinson: CLS - W (DK: $7.6K, FD: $7.2K)

Atkinson is my favorite winger on the slate, plus he gets the benefit of Panarin expected back in the lineup tonight. New Jersey has allowed an average of 4.28 goals a game over their last 10 games. Meanwhile, Atkinson is averaging 8.2 shot attempts (1.8 high danger) with 4.8 shots on net over his last 5 games.

Erik Karlsson: SJ - D (DK: $6.1K, FD: $7.3K)

I have Karlsson in my top D spot again tonight. I'm a sucker for D who shoot the puck. Still averaging 9 shot attempts a night with 5 shots on net and 1.4 blocks a game 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.

Bo Horvat: VAN C (DK: $5.1K, FD: $5.6K)

Averaging 5.6 shot attempts (1.8 high danger) and 3.8 shots on net and facing a St. Louis team that is giving up 3.35 goals a game over their last 10.

Andrei Svechnikov: CAR - W (DK: $4.7K, FD: $3.9K)

A little underpriced, especially on FanDuel. Svechnikov is seeing 4.4 scoring chances and has a 62 CF% with 5.4 shot attempts (2.6 high danger) with 3.8 shots on net over his last 5 games.

Colton Parayko: STL - D (DK: $4.8K, FD: $4.1K)

Better priced on FanDuel, but I don't mind him on DraftKings. He's averaging 6.2 shot attempts with 3.2 shots on net and 1.2 blocks a game in over 24 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.

Martin Hanzal: DAL - C (DK: $3.2K, FD: $3.5K)

Ryan Donato: BOS - W (DK: $3K, FD: $3.3K)

Jakob Chychrun: ARI - D (DK: $3.8K, FD: $3.5K)

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):

FLA: Huberdeau-Barkov-Hoffman (DK: $19K, FD: $21.1K)

TOR: Hyman-Tavares-Marner (DK: $18.6K, FD: $20.1K)

Favorite stacks:

SJ: Hertl-Couture-Meier (DK: $18.4K FD: $19K)

TB: Johnson-Point-Kucherov (DK: $19.4K FD: $22.2K)

Biscuit stacks (high risk, high upside):

CAR: Martinook-Aho-Teravainen (DK: $15.2K FD: $14.8K)

ANH: Aberg-Getzlaf-Kase (DK: $16.1K FD: $15.9K)

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