Welcome back, family. NHL resumes the 2019-2020 season on August 1 with an expanded playoff format featuring 24 teams. We'll get 5 or 6 games each day. This is going to be wild.

Before we get into who to target on August 1, I want to start with a refresher of NHL DFS.

NHL DFS - The Basics

First, if you're new to NHL DFS, it plays much slower than NBA or NFL. In other words, you won't see your lineup scores change as much as you do in other sports. NHL DFS is a 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.

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). A popular strategy will be to play the goalie from the same team as one of your stacks because if the players in your stack do well, your goalie should do well or at least pick up the win.

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. This is often where I'll spend up the most.

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 Tips

1️⃣ Projections don’t matter. Say this out loud. Projections don’t matter. A $3500 guy can outscore a $7000 guy. It happens. Much like MLB, there is no floor. Your $7000 guy could drop a 0 in your lineup. Projections are just a starting point because the optimizer needs something to build a lineup. That said, if you're using the optimizer, I prefer "FP Allowed to Line", "Tournaments - GPP", or "Alerts" as models to build lineups with.

2️⃣ You can usually ignore most 3rd line and almost all 4th line skaters. If they aren’t on a power play unit (1st power play unit preferably), get 15+ minutes, or get 3+ shots on net, I don’t want anything to do with them.

3️⃣ Focus on 1st power play unit players. Although teams have two power play units, some teams run the first unit much heavier than the second. In other words, a 1st power play unit may be on the ice for 90 seconds of the power play, and the second unit may only be out for 30 seconds.

4️⃣ For forwards, I generally look for skaters with 3+ shots on net, 16+ minutes of ice time, and time on one of the power play units.

5️⃣ For defensemen, I generally look for players with 3+ shots, 2+ blocks, 23+ minutes of ice time and get time on one of the power play units.

6️⃣ Stacking is something most seasoned NHL DFS players do. Many will do at least 3 players from one line and 3 players from another line, but you can also see 4-3 stacks, 3-3-2 stacks, and 3-naked stacks. Nothing wins every night. My best advice would be to not try to force stacks. If you get a 3-2-2 stack and like you’re lineup, I’d go with that instead of trying to force a 3-3 stack.

7️⃣ Goalie is the highest variance position. If you’re playing multiple lineups, I wouldn’t lock anyone in. I typically don’t play a goalie in more than 40% of my lineups. Your goalie will probably let in a goal (or two, or three). What I want most is a win and 30-35+ saves. Saves and a win can help make up for a goal or two that is allowed.

8️⃣ Nothing is truly “confirmed.” There are no official lineups in NHL. Team warm-ups happen 30 minutes before the game starts. That’s really when we know what goalie is starting and what player lines will be. If a player is scratched, that’s when you’ll know as well. While it’s somewhat rare that there’s scratches or line changes, you’ll know right before the game starts.

9️⃣ Like every other DFS sport, scoring will vary by slate. Usually, 200+ scores will get you near the top or at the top of most GPPs on most nights. 170+ is usually a decent cashing score. I don’t play cash games, but typically a 150+ is needed to cash comfortably most nights.

🔟 There are no “must plays” in NHL. Top ownership typically runs 20-30% for the highest owned player. Play who you like and hope for the best, remembering that what is supposed to happen usually don’t.

Salary

How much of my salary do I leave or recommend leaving in lineups? In general, my take is this: You don’t need to use all the salary allotted in your lineups. If you do, that’s fine. If you don’t, that’s fine too. But when you get to the end of your lineup build and you have $6000 left and the player you like is $5500, I don’t think you need to spend up and pick a $6000 player just because that’s what you have left. I think leaving $500 on the table is perfectly fine.

For the most part, my lineups will max out salary along with a few that will leave $300-$500 on the table. On smaller slates, I might force my lineups to leave at least $1000 on the table, but these are the settings I typically run (for DraftKings):

Hand Building Lineups

Years back, I heard some general DFS advice in that you should try hand-building a few lineups before doing any research. This is said to benefit you in a number of ways.

• It helps you see where any immediate biases are.

• It helps you see how lineups will fit together.

• It gives you possible insight into how others might be constructing lineups.

I’ll admit, I rely pretty heavily on the optimizer to build lineups for me, but I try not to let the optimizer run like a slot machine. In other words, I want my lineups to be assembled a certain way and follow certain rules. For me, it might be that I want all my players to have at least 15 minutes of ice time, each player needs to be on a power play line, or that I want to have at least 2 players from the late slate.

Your “rules” may vary from mine. That’s ok. Some rules can be set in the optimizer. Some might take a little bit of finessing, which brings me back to my point on hand-building. As much as I want my optimizer lineups to look hand-built, I know that I need to scan through them before entering and look for mistakes. It’s saved me more times than not and prevents me from wasting lineups.

Questions

I’ve been seeing a lot of the same questions in LineStar Chat and I want to take some time to touch on some of those for the people that might be new or still struggling with NHL DFS.

Who is a lock?

No one. $7000 players can drop a 0, even with the best matchup in the world. That’s not to say that I won’t play someone at 100%. I’ve done that with players like McDavid, MacKinnon, and Pastrnak, but it’s a very select few that I do that with. But it’s a matter of “play who you like” more than “you have to play this person.”

What position do I spend up for?

I don’t decide on who to spend up for on position. Instead, I’m looking at players and probability that they could have a ceiling game. Some nights, that might be John Carlson. Other nights, that might be Pastrnak. Also, I’ll make the argument that you can usually pick two or three positions to spend up on in your lineup without having too high of an opportunity cost.

What position do I play in the UTIL spot?

Just like before, it really depends on how your lineup looks as a whole. For me, I’m heavily reliant on stacking. The UTIL spot for me will typically be the best player available to fill my stack.

What team do I stack?

In the LineStar app, I like to use an advanced sorter for “Skaters vs Opp Team (Last 5)” and sort by “FPPG to Line.” These are lines that typically have the best matchup on the slate.

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