Written by LineStar Fantasy Life Coach @ZeroInDenver.

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Welcome back to the NHL Hat Trick.

ICYMI - The NHL Season Preview & Strategy guide goes over the basics of NHL DFS and what I look for when researching players.

I'm doing my first player breakdown on tommienation1 and his win in the $10 contest a couple of weeks ago on Jan 21. I put that at the end of this, so if you're not interested, you can dive straight into tonight's slate and go from there, but I'd invite you to give it a look and see how one of the pros builds his lineups and see if there's anything you can learn, even if you're only playing a handful of lineups.

Let me know what you think in LineStar chat!

Tonight's Slate

Here's numbers on the teams so far this season. Generally, I start my research by looking for teams in good spots. For example, teams that score goals (GF60) that are facing teams that give up goals (GA60). I also look at teams that shoot a lot (CF60) that are facing teams that give up a lot of shots (CA60).

Legend: CF% = Corsi For Percentage, CF60 = Corsi For Per60 min, CA = Corsi Allowed Per 60 Min, HDCF60 = High Danger Corsi For Per 60 Min, HDCA60 = High Danger Corsi Allowed Per 60 Min, SF60 = Shots on Goal For Per 60 Min, SA60 = Shots on Goal Allowed Per 60 Min, SOT = % of Shot Attempts On Goal, Sh% = % of Shots on Goal That Are Goals, SCF60 = Scoring Chances For Per 60 Min, SCA60 = Scoring Chances Allowed Per 60 Min, GF60 = Goals For Per 60 Min, GA60 = Goals Allowed Per 60.

Goaltender Rankings

How to Interpret This: I've added LineStar Projected Ownership, LineStar Projected Fantasy Points, and Goalie GAA (Goals Saved Above Average), and Saves/60, along with my projected upside for each goalie. Generally, I'm looking for goalies that I think will get a win with a positive (green) GSAA and a high saves number.

As always - double-check that your goalie is starting before the game starts.

My Favorite:

Andrei Vasilevskiy - TB (DK: $8400, FD: $8500) *CONFIRMED STARTER*

Vasilevskiy has been solid this season with a 2.17GAA and a .925 Save% and goes up against a Nashville team that is only scoring 2.38 goals a game so far this season.

Forwards and Defensemen Rankings

How to Interpret C/D/W charts: In NHL DFS, I think it's most important to look at peripheral stats instead of goals which is why I put so much emphasis on shots. This includes shot attempts, high danger shot attempts (those shot attempts closest to the net with the highest probability of going into the net), and shots on goal. I've included projections and average fantasy points to see how each compares so you can more easily find value.

Center

My Favorite

Mika Zibanejad - NYR (DK: $6500, FD: $6900)

Zibanejad has underperformed this year, but Pittsburgh goaltenders haven't been that great this season. Zibanejad gets a ton of ice time and is still shooting the puck that it's only a matter of time before he breaks out.

Winger

My Favorite:

Brendan Gallagher - MON (DK: $5700, FD: $7200)

Vancouver is allowing 3.4 goals a game and Gallagher shoots the puck a lot.

Defensemen

My Favorite

Nate Schmidt - VAN (DK: $3900, FD: $4500)

Schmidt is pretty cheap for someone who shoots the puck a lot and gets a lot of ice time.

Bottom of the Barrel

Here are my cheap calls for a skater to pick up a goal or assist.

Mikael Backlund: CGY - C (DK: $3.9K, FD: $4.7K)

Alexis Lafreniere: NYR - W (DK: $3.4K, FD: $4.2K)

Joel Edmundson : MON - D (DK: $3.5K, FD: $3.6K)

Line Stacks

Here are my ranked stacks for tonight:

Favorite Stacks Tonight:

Top-Projected Owned Stacks:

Again - this isn't an invitation to fade any of these lines. If you're playing GPP, you could pretty comfortably stack one of these top-owned stacks with a biscuit stack and get a fairly unique lineup.

Risk-It-For-The-Biscuit Stacks:

Lineup Strategy for Medium Slates

Tonight's slate has 5 games on tap, which is what I would consider a medium slate. One of the ways that I've learned how to approach different size slates is to take a look at how some of the pros approach large slates. Here, I'm going to review lineups by DraftKings user tommienation1, who won the $100K NHL Twine on 1/21. This is a $10 entry contest where you'll find most of the NHL DFS pros any given night. Here's how his lineups looked from a high level:

I know some of you may be thinking "well, no wonder he won, he played everyone!" That may be true - he did stack every team on the slate (remember 1/21 was a 6-game slate), he did end up taking a pretty solid stand on the Islanders. Almost a third of his lineups went to Barzal, Lee, and Eberle who were perfectly correlated on the same line and power play unit for the Islanders. From there, his stack usage somewhat lined up with teams' implied totals on the night.

Now, as we start diving into individual lineups, we can see how he formed his 3-3, 4-3, and 5-2 stacks. You'll see on his winning lineup, he paired NYI PP1 along with a 2-man MON3 stack, and Nathan MacKinnon. Personally, I'm a big fan of doing 3-3 even strength line stacks, but I think I could certainly be missing out by leaving out 5-2 power play stacks from my lineup portfolio on medium slates. I think I'm probably not doing enough 4-3 stacks either.

Here's a closer look at how his lineups break down:

Again, I like to use this info to think of how I want to construct lineups. You can translate this into a lot of the LineStar general settings and stack settings. I spend a lot of time going to past slates and seeing how different settings affect the average and top scores of the lineups I'm producing so that I can have a solid strategy for the next similar slate.

I'd love to know your thoughts on this and if you'd be interested in more slate/lineup strategies in the future.

Keep in mind, plays listed are my favorites. You should all do your own research and you might (and probably should) disagree with me in some spots. Don't be afraid to go your own way.

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

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