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.

Ok - so this is going to be a long newsletter. Shoutout to nomjlikeme in chat for the questions and topics for me to cover. Like I said, I don’t have all the answers, but I’m always happy to share my thoughts and my approach. While I’m focusing on NHL here, a lot of what I have to say applies to how I approach all DFS sports. I’m still trying to get better, so my way definitely isn’t the best way. But I have learned things over the years and hopefully I can pass some of that on.

So let’s jump into it.

Optimal Player Pools

I’ve mentioned in chat several times that I think working with a solid player pool is key (at least to me). It’s often a mix of “who stands out as being a really good play” and “who can I eliminate”.

In fact, it’s probably easier to start with “who can I eliminate.” For me, that means dumping everyone that’s on the 4th line and most forwards (C and W) on the 3rd line. On a 5 game tonight, I’ll be more generous on what third liners I include. Typically, I try to focus on third liners that will get power play minutes or have decent stats (for a third liner) like 14 minutes+ and at least 2-3 shots a game.

For defensemen, I try to keep my pool pretty tight. Maybe 15 at most on a large slate. Really, I want some of the best ones. D typically have safer floors (with decent ceilings) that I feel better putting someone like Burns in as many lineups as I can, than punting and hoping for the best.

All said and done, I’ll probably have 100-125 players in my pool for a night like tonight. Keep in mind, I’ll have 150 lineups, but my thought process is to get a lot of differentiation in forwards and goalies, as they have some of the highest variance night to night. Even in 20 lineups, I might still have 60-80 players in my pool, still going around the same process - sticking to about 10 D and varying forwards.

To Fade or Not To Fade

This is a tough one. Like I said, I’m playing 150 lineups tonight, so my version of “fade” is a lot different from someone playing a handful of lineups.

However, this is my general thought process. “Fade” for me is often going underweight on a team than outright not playing them. I don’t “not play” very many teams. I just limit exposure. For example, if I think a team is going to be popular. Let’s say that I think Washington is going to be popular tonight. Remember, ownership is MUCH different in NHL than sports like NBA and NFL. The “chalk” team might be 20% owned - maybe today 25% and I think that’s high.

Let’s pretend that Washington is going to be the most popular at 20%. I’m not going to fade them completely, but I am going to go underweight on them, to where I might have them at 10-15% in my lineup. OR I might focus more on a second or third line stack for Washington. That way I still have exposure to a top play, but I’m differentiating in that I’m going after lower owned targets and hope to get lucky off of that. It’s no different than going after the 6-7-8 hitters in MLB.

Now you might be thinking, that’s great if you’re doing 150 lineups, but what about 20? Same approach, I’ll reserve 3-5 to “hedge” by playing a top line stack of the top or obvious plays, but then I’ll really go after the gut and favorite play. I’ll get more into how I determine favorites down in the stacks section.

Goaltender Selection

Ok, so goaltender selection is tough. I don’t try to overthink it most nights. I try to look at two things:

How the goalie has done over the last month in terms of goals allowed (under 2.5 preferably), save percentage (greater than .910), GSAA (more is better), as well as their standard deviation for points scored (higher is bad). The win bonus can be huge some nights too, so I factor that in as well. Based on this, these are my top-ranked goalies for tonight. I’ll have exposure to all of these players, but will probably lean heavier on Delia and Copley. A lot is due to price, but with Copley, my hope is that people will have some recency bias with Washington’s game last night.

Tonight's Slate

We covered most of the basics last week, so I'm going to go back to provide team numbers for the main slate. These are team numbers for the last 10 games:

A few games stick out for me, CLS-CHI, VAN-SJ, TOR-ARI, and OTT-WPG. A lot of this has to do with Corsi (shot attempts) that the teams have taken or given up as well as the goals scored and allowed over the last 10 games.

If you’re new, let’s do a quick rundown of what each of the columns represents:

W = wins, L = losses (excluding OT losses), CF% = Corsi (shot attempts) For %, CF60 = Corsi for per 60 minutes (more is better), 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, GF60 = goals for per 60 minutes, GA60 = goals allowed per 60 minutes.

Of course, if you have any additional thoughts or questions, be sure to hit me up in chat.

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.

Adrian Kempe: LA - C (DK: $3K, FD: $4.3K)

Oscar Lindberg: VGK - W (DK: $3.1K, FD: $3.4K)

Erik Cernak: TB - D (DK: $3.4K, 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. 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.

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:

I've mentioned this in chat, but using the stack finder and using advanced sorters to look at skaters vs opp team are good starting points to pick stacks for the night. I built my own process to do the work for me, but I used to do a lot of this manually in a notebook. I basically built a Venn diagram to decide who's the best among value, Vegas, matchup, recent performance, ownership, etc.

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.