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.

There's a 9 game slate on tap for tonight, but before I get into that, I'm going to continue to talk about DFS process. To be more specific, how to assess the outcome of a slate.

It's easy to pass the blame when lineups don't do well. Maybe a player had a bad night. Maybe you missed injury news. Maybe you didn't play someone that the rest of the field seemed to have. These things happen, but what about the other side. Let's say you had a good night? Can you duplicate that tomorrow?

When I started DFS, I kept a notebook and wrote notes by hand. In crudely drawn circles, I'd write out players that I thought were in good matchups, were good value plays, and then I'd create separate buckets for players that were performing well. I ended up looking for players that checked the most boxes for me. Those were the players and teams that I ended up playing.

There were two main reasons for doing this. For starters, it helped me organize my thoughts. I think a lot of DFS players have a tendency to play whoever is on their mind closest to lock. You might have researched all day and decided Patrick Kane was in a great spot, but you ended up with Jonathan Marchessault because that's who you researched last.

You have to be careful not to hindsight your decision either. Just because one scored more than the other doesn't mean it was necessarily the best play. I think if you're assessing the success of your lineup by that, you're going to have a bad time and you're only going to be more indecisive in your thinking, which brings me to my next point in keeping a notebook.

It's a way for me to track my decision making process over time. Am I making good choices? Go back and look at how players in your pool worked out. Did you miss anything? If a player was higher owned and you didn't have them, why was that? I think if you can look at your lineup critically like this it will help make for better decisions.

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, PIT-NJ, TOR-STL, TB-PHI, and BUF-FLA. 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.

Nick Cousins: ARI - C (DK: $3.5K, FD: $3.7K)

Jesper Bratt: NJ - W (DK: $3.6K, FD: $3.8K)

Marcus Pettersson: PIT - D (DK: $3.2K, FD: $3.9K)

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.