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.

Last newsletter before Christmas (and there won't be another until next Thursday) so I want to wish everyone a Merry Christmas. If you don't celebrate, I hope you can take some time to spend quality time with family and friends.

We get a pretty sad three game slate tonight. Sad because there's some pretty obvious spots. So let's get this out of the way right now - if you want to play MacKinnon, Eichel, or Ovechkin, go for it. They're going to be pretty high owned and I wouldn't steer you off of them, even if you just play them as a one-off. Instead, let's focus more today on players that may go overlooked but have solid upside.

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:

If you're new, let's do a quick rundown of what each of the columns represents (remember these are numbers over the past 10 games):

W = wins, L = losses (excluding OT losses), CF% = Corsi (shot attempts) For %, CF60 = Corsi for per 60 minutes, CA60 = Corsi allowed per 60 minutes, HDCF60 = High danger Corsi for per 60 minutes, HDCA60 = High danger Corsi allowed per 60 minutes, SF60 = shots for on net per 60 minutes, SA60 = shots on net allowed per 60 minutes, SV% = save percentage, SOT = shots on target (percentage of shots taken that hit the goal or go in), Sh% = shooting percentage (% of shots that become goals), SCF60 = scoring chances for per 60 minutes, SCA60 = scoring chances allowed per 60 minutes, PDO = Called SPSV% by the NHL, is the sum of a team's shooting percentage and its save percentage, GF60 = goals for per 60 minutes, GA60 = goals allowed per 60 minutes, Avg = Projected goals (my projections) for the team, xTotal = projected over/under

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.

🅿️ Carter Hutton vs ✅ Braden Holtby

✅ Craig Anderson vs ✅ Keith Kinkaid

🅿️ Cam Ward vs ✅ Philipp Grubauer

Now, lets look at my favorites on the slate:

Goaltending

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.

Let's not overcomplicate it. With 6 goalies on the slate, I'm going to have shares of each goalie, but here's my top 3:

Craig Anderson (@ NJD) (DK: $7.2K, FD: $8K)

As proven this week, anything can happen, but I'm going to go with Anderson in a lot of lineups because he's cheap and has been pretty consistent from a fantasy perspective.

Braden Holtby, BUF (vs BUF) (DK: $7.9K, FD: $8.8K)

Washington is favored, and Holtby has been one of the more consistent goalies on the slate. A good way to go if you're not stacking Buffalo.

Philipp Grubauer, COL (vs COL) (DK: $8.2K, FD: $7.6K)

Grubauer is projected to be the highest owned goalie on the slate. I'll have healthy shares of him as well, but stacking Chicago would be a good way to go in tournaments to differentiate.

#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):

Evgeny Kuznetsov: WAS - C (DK: $5.9K, FD: $7.3K)

Forget Kuznetsov on FanDuel, but he's a great price on DraftKings. He's got a 60 CF% with 5.4 shot attempts and 3.4 shots on net in his last 5 games and plays on the top powerplay line for Washington.

Gabriel Landeskog: COL - W (DK: $6.7K, FD: $7.3K)

You guys in chat have made my job so easy today. Landeskog sticks out because he's underpriced (when compared to his line mates) and has a great matchup tonight.

Rasmus Ristolainen: BUF - D (DK: $5.3K, FD: $5.3K)

Ristolainen has been playing a ton of minutes and shoots the puck a lot: 6 shot attempts and 4 shots on net 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.

Jonathan Toews: CHI C (DK: $5.2K, FD: $7K)

I'll admit - this is a gut call. Nothing in his numbers really stands out, but Chicago really played with desperation last night and I feel that if a lot of people are going to play Grubauer and Colorado, I want the other side of that.

T.J. Oshie: WAS - W (DK: $5.4K, FD: $5.7K)

Oshie has a 61 CF% with 4.4 shot attempts and 3 shots on net a game over his last 5 games.

Rasmus Dahlin: BUF - D (DK: $4.2K, FD: $4.6K)

You guys already mentioned him in chat, but worth mentioning again for anyone that missed it. Dahlin has 6.2 shot attempts and 3.4 shots on net in 24 minutes of ice time over his last 5 games and is underpriced for today.

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.

Travis Zajac: NJ - C (DK: $3.9K, FD: $4.4K)

Colin Wilson: COL - W (DK: $2.9K, FD: $3.9K)

Samuel Girard: COL - D (DK: $3.5K, FD: $4K)

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):

COL: Landeskog-Mackinnon-Rantanen (DK: $22.5K, FD: $24.6K)

BUF: Skinner-Eichel-Reinhart (DK: $20.4K, FD: $21.5K)

Favorite stacks:

OTT: Tkachuk-White-Stone (DK: $15.4K FD: $16K)

WAS: Ovechkin-Backstrom-Oshie (DK: $19.5K FD: $22.2K)

Biscuit stacks (high risk, high upside):

COL: Nieto-Soderberg-Calvert (DK: $10.2K FD: $10.9K)

CHI: Strome-Anisimov-Kane (DK: $14K FD: $17.2K)

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