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 to the NHL Hat Trick.

With the NBA All Star break starting today, I expect to have a bunch of NBA DFS players dropping in to check NHL out tonight. Because of that, I'm going to do things a little bit differently. I'm going to start with a crash course in NHL DFS strategy. Then I'll go into player rankings and my own thoughts on the slate.

Basic Strategy

First, forget everything you know about NBA DFS. NHL is completely different. It's a much slower DFS sport with wild swings. It plays more like MLB, actually. You could get a $4000 player that scores two goals and a $7000 player that doesn't do anything all night. There's really no floor in NHL. Stacking is huge as well. In a sport where games could end 1-0 or 2-1, you want to make the most from every goal scored.

Here's how fantasy points are scored on both sites.

Basically, goals are everything. To win in cash games, you'll need at least 30-35 points most nights on DraftKings and 120-130 on FanDuel. To min-cash in GPPs, you'll need 40-45 points on DraftKings (with 60-70 to win) and 150-170 on FanDuel (with 220-250 to win).

Goalies

Goalies in hockey are like your pitchers in baseball. I'm going to oversimplify it, but you want a goalie that's going to face a bunch of shots and get a win. Like pitchers, goalies have fairly limited ceilings. Shutouts are fairly rare, as are goalies that face more than 30-35 shots. I don't think you always need to spend up to get the most expensive goalie on the slate (especially in GPP), but I wouldn't recommend going after the cheapest goalies on the slate either (GPP is fine).

Forwards (C and W)

These players have the highest ceiling. In a nutshell, you want these players to come from the first or second line. Bonus if they are on the first powerplay unit. Ideally, they'll be averaging over 3 shots on net over their last 5 games and get over 17 minutes of ice time a night.

Defensemen

Generally, I'm looking for defensemen with floor plus ceiling. In other words, I'm looking for defensemen that get 23 minutes or more of ice time and play on the first powerplay unit. Look for defensemen that take shots and block shots as well. I've seen people play a $3000 defensemen because he's cheap, but if he's averaging 1 shot and 1 block, you may only get 1 fantasy point (3.2 on FanDuel) from that player. Is that good? Probably not. Look for a combined 4 shots + blocks a game over their last 5 games.

Top 10 Skaters

Here are my top-ranked skaters overall on the slate. This is based on recent performance and matchup.

It's worth noting that the "PrjOwn" column is based on LineStar's projected ownership for the main slate. It's not perfect, but it's certainly better than nothing. If you missed the last few newsletters, "Proj" is the LineStar projection for the night and "Consis" is the rate that the player has met or exceeded projected fantasy points over the past 30 days.

Rankings By Position

Here are my rankings for players on the slate. Now, these are my own personal rankings based on player performance over the past 5 and 10 games along with matchup and my own sauce. While it's far from perfect, I think it can be helpful if you're new to NHL or have trouble with 1v1 comparisons.

Mostly, I'm trying to give a little more transparency into who I like for the night and who is worth considering. I don't believe in locks or must plays. So with goalies, I usually hover around the top spots and split exposure. In baseball, I'll often swap pitchers if I get a lineup with all the hitters I like. Same applies with goalies. If you build a lineup and like your skaters, but aren't certain on goalies, don't be afraid to create a second lineup with your second favorite goalie.

If you take anything away from this, keep in mind that hockey is a high-variance sport. The top ranked player in each category could be a great play or be a dud tonight. Going all in on any player probably isn't a great move.

With DFS, I try to think of these things:

• Who makes the most sense to play?

• Who has been the most consistent?

• Who has the most upside?

• Who will benefit me most if others are wrong?

Next, let's look at today's skaters, starting with centers.

One of the takeaways that I hope you'll get from this is that I might have a player ranked lower that might be a better play in your lineup due to price, consistency, or recent performance. DFS isn't just about picking good players. Build good lineups. It's a fish move to instantly grab each player from the top. If you do that, you'll almost certainly end up with 2-3 punts. Can it work? Sure. But will it work most of the time? Probably not.

Next, let's look at wingers - and like I mentioned, NHL is all about correlation. When building your lineups, always think of who you can pair together. If there's a center that you love, it's probably a good idea to find a winger or defenseman to pair him with.

And defensemen...

Hopefully this helps in your decision making process. Remember, make good lineups. Don't just pick as many top ranked players as you can fit and punt the rest. You'll probably have a bad time. Any questions? Anything else you'd like comparisons on? If so, hit me up in chat.

Bottom of the Barrel

Some might call these "value" plays. I hate the term. These are the players in the lowest salary tier that I think are in a good spot tonight.

Joel Eriksson Ek: MIN - C (DK: $2.9K, FD: $3.6K)

Jesper Bratt: NJ - W (DK: $3.3K, FD: $3.4K)

Cam Fowler: ANH - D (DK: $4.1K, FD: $3.8K)

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. DraftKings allows a maximum of 6 skaters from the same team (with skaters from at least 3 teams) and FanDuel allows a maximum of 4 skaters from one team. In tournaments, you'll often see 3-3 stacks (meaning 3 players from one team and 3 from another team), 4-3, and 3-3-2 stacks.

Here's an example (albeit, a popular one for tonight on FanDuel). Here I'm stacking 4 players from the first powerplay unit on Boston. This is ideal for a couple reasons. First, it includes the full first line. Second, it gives exposure to the second powerplay unit with Heinen and the second line with DeBrusk.

It's also a fairly decent play because it leaves enough on the table to pick a decent goalie and other skaters without really having to punt.

You'll notice that I picked the Boston goalie. You don't need to do this and in most cases, I don't correlate goalies. The reason being is that even though I want Boston to score a lot and expect them to get the win, if the game ends 5-4, you're not going to get a good number of fantasy points.

Hopefully that makes some sense. Next, I’m going to list three of the the highest-projected owned stacks (based on LineStar Ownership Projections), three of my favorite stacks, and three “biscuit” (high risk, high reward) stacks:

Keep in mind, these 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.