Welcome to the getaway NHL DFS slate before Christmas. We have a 12 game slate with – what I think – is some pretty clear chalk. Let’s get into it!

This NHL article is going to focus more on industry-wide NHL projections and ownership, some stuff that looks underowned, and the chalk construction. We’ll close with some game theory and leverage thoughts. Please tag me in discord (Kikikartier) with any feedback. Let’s dig in!

*I will be updating my NHL thoughts and posting industry-consensus sims in NHL discord. so please check back. 

This article was updated for NHL lines and injuries at 1 pm ET. Updates will occur throughout the day

Use this article in conjunction with the NHL models and Contest Sims to give yourself a real chance at winning each and every slate.

 

NHL DFS Lines

 

• Despite this being a 12-game slate, we have a pretty clear chalk build here – and it starts with VGK2 (Hertl/Dorofeyev/Saad) at 17% owned. That’s quite a bit of ownership for a line that hasn’t done jack shit at even strength all year. They have generated all their production on the power play. I expect them – and the entire Vegas Power Play (Hertl/Dorofeyev/Stone/Marner) to be exceptionally popular as a 4-man stack. The very logical pairing here is a variant of EDM2 with Draisaitl/Podkolzin/Bouchard. It gets you the 4 Vegas power play forwards, Saad, Draisaitl/Podkolzin/Bouchard, and another pay up defensemen and goalie of your choice. I’m not going to quibble with playing the Oilers in the battle for Alberta vs Calgary at 12-14%, but I would tread carefully on a line (VGK2) that has been so bad at even strength on such a big slate. I think the Vegas power play is fine, but it’s simply not the same unit without Jack Eichel. I would not play it without Mitch Marner under any circumstances either.
  
• There are two other lines that likely see double digit ownership here – LAK2 (Byfield/Fiala/Laferriere) and NYI1 (Barzal/Heineman/Lee). The Kings have been putrid at creating offense all year and stopped me from winning all the money despite having the stones around them. They project well, but realize what you’re getting into. I do not mind NYI1 at all. Jack Hughes is back for New Jersey – but that doesn’t really help them defensively. They are especially adrift without Simon Nemec and their goaltending has been shaky at best. I do not hate NYI1 at all – even at ownership.
• Our projections like COL1 (MacKinnon/Necas/Landeskog) a bit better than EDM1 (McDavid/Hyman/Nugent-Hopkins), but I suspect the field will as well. This is a decent spot for COL1 against UTA at home. They are the better team here – despite UTA having been able to jam teams up defensively this year. I suspect that the field will talk themselves into COL1 over EDM1 due to the matchup the MacDavid line has against CGY3 (Backlund/Coleman/Zary). Those guys are pretty solid defensively, but Connor McDavid (9500) does not care about such things. It’s a rivalry game and the Oilers will get up for this one. Hopefully Calgary can stay in it and push them. EDM1 is one of my favorite spends on the slate tonight. I think McDavid/Hyman, McDavid/Nugent-Hopkins, McDavid/Draisaitl, or 3 of them with or without Bouchard are strong as well. I expect both COL1 and EDM1 to be around 10% here, but MacKinnon gets around 15-17% and McDavid 10-12%.
• It’s fine if you want to go with cheaper COL2 (Nelson/Nichushkin/Lahkonen). It’s not like UTA is a penalty-heavy team anyway.
• It’s worth noting that the MIN Power Play (Kaprizov/Zuccarello/Boldy/Eriksson Ek/Hughes) is the highest projected on the night with a strong point/$ projection just below 2. Nashville leads the NHL in penalties over the last two weeks – and while that’s noisy – the MIN Power Play is absolutely lethal after adding Quinn Hughes (6900). The Nashville Penalty Kill has been good all year – and we have been let down by MIN all year – but I will certainly go to them here. They should be substantially lower owned than EDM or COL due to being 800 more expensive. We also have MIN1 (Hartman/Kaprizov/Zuccarello) as the third highest projected line on the night at only 17.4. They also look like a strong play with or without Hughes. It’s also worth noting that MIN3 (Yurov/Tarasenko/Trenin) has been on an absolute heater the last week – and NSH3 is one of the worst defensive lines in hockey. They don’t project that well, but they project fine Industry-wide. If you want to go to them with a COL or EDM stack, I think that’s fine.
• You can also go to the Nashville side with NSH1 (O’Reilly/Forsberg/Stamkos) at a reasonable 16.2K price tag and little to no ownership against chalky Gustavsson (G, 8300). They have been good all year, are fully correlated on the power play, and this Minnesota Penalty Kill has been bad for a half decade. We have them projected pretty well to (as always)
• The second game I am going to address here is the shitshow that is likely to be BUF/OTT. I like going to OTT1 (Steutzle/Tkachuk/Zetterlund), OTT2 (Cozens/Batherson/Perron), or BUF2 (Ostlund/Tuch/Norris) at even strength. However, it’s the power plays that interest me. These are two penalty-happy teams with dreadful penalty kills that have gotten awful goaltending all year. The OTT Power Play (Steutzle/Tkachuk/Batherson/Cozens/Sanderson) has a strong point/$ projection for us. I have interest on both sides here, but the BUF Power Play (Thompson/Doan/Norris/Benson/Dahlin) is really intriguing. They have been a top-5 NHL power play since the return of Norris. I doubt anyone is playing them either. Thompson/Doan/Norris/Dahlin would be my favorite combination. You can go to either side here, because there’s a ton of volatility. The BUF power play projects about the same point/$ as the super chalky Vegas power play – but at an even cheaper price. They look excellent here.
• MTL/BOS could also turn into a shitshow tonight. These two teams cannot stay out of the box, so there’s some real volatility here as well. You can go to MTL1 (Suzuki/Caufield/Bolduc) or BOS1 (Zacha/Pastrnak/Mittlestadt) on this slate for sure. I wish Morgan Geekie (6600) weren’t so expensive though. He’s a huge part of this BOS offense – especially on the power play – and Casey Mittlestadt is garbage. I probably prefer Zacha/Pastrnak/McAvoy with or without Geekie and just ditching Mittlestadt unless you just need a cheap guy. I like both sides – but I prefer BOS simply because they will have a huge goaltending advantage with Swayman instead of whatever homeless guy Montreal runs out tonight
• I’ve already mentioned the Islanders as a spot for value, but it’s worth noting that David Rittich (7800) is in net tonight instead of Sorokin. People love to pick on bad goalies – and NJ2 (Hughes/Gritsyuk/Mercer projects pretty well. I don’t hate them here at all, but they definitely fall behind MIN1, BUF PP, NSH1, MTL1, and BOS1 for me.
• If you’re looking for value, then this Chicago/Philadelphia game is for you. This game sucks. I’m not gonna lie. However, I do like PHI2 (Couturier/Tippett/Barkey) and PHI3 (Cates/Brink/Michkov) as cheap value lines from the Philly side. Also – Denver Barkey definitely sounds like a male stripper. I wonder if he hangs out with Blade Tidwell and Maverick Handley?
• I mentioned Edmonton earlier, but I do not mind going to the Calgary side for value either. CGY1 (Huberdeau/Frost/Coranato) or CGY PP (Kadri/Coranato/Frost or Huberdeau) is probably my preference. However, CGY3 (Backlund/Coleman/Zary) are going to play a bunch chasing Connor McDavid around. They seem fine if you want someone that cheap.
• The overall winning combinations on these bigger slates so far has been more 4/3/1 or 3-3-1-1 than larger stacks. However, we have seen larger COL and EDM stacks win from time to time.

In smaller fields – VGK2 is the double condom play of the year. They have not been good at even strength, but the recency bias folks will love them looking at the last few games. That’s all on the power play. I’m out on VGK2 and LAK2 in all formats. VGK1 (Marner/Stone/Barbashev) seems much better than VGK2 to me. Vegas power play seems fine, but – to me – the edge is in fading Hertl/Dorofeyev. I think OTT1, MIN1, NJ2, OTT2, and COL2 are all in the discussion for smaller fields. I definitely think the small field build is double spend up at defense though.

In larger fields, choose your own adventure. EDM1 and COL1 are fine, but the mid-tier stacks with guys like McDavid or MacKinnon as one-offs or in two-mans with a teammate have very strong win equity. That’s a route to go instead of double spending up at defense. I think both sides of MTL/BOS, BUF/OTT, and NSH/MIN present strong opportunities tonight. The BUF Power Play is my favorite low owned play of the night. It really fits the construction and characteristics of winning lineups on larger slates. PHI2, PHI3, NYI1 and CGY1/PP look like reasonable spots to mine value from. I think the chalk constructions will be double spend up at defense or at least one cheaper defensemen in order to get up to MacKinnon, McDavid, or Draisaitl as a one-off. I am somewhat concerned about the ownership on McDavid and MacKinnon here. Their linemates are unlikely to see as much ownership though.

 

NHL Defense

 

• There’s a couple clear chalk routes tonight. One is double spend up with Sanderson (6500) and Bouchard (7000) at 15% each. The other is one of those guys with Artyom Levshunov (3000). Thomas Chabot (4200) probably garners around 15% as well – but his price is outrageous. He’s incredibly productive when healthy. Same goes for Noah Hanifin (4500) as the power play defensemen for chalky vegas
• I think Quinn Hughes (6900) and Rasmus Dahlin (6200) are strong pivots away from Bouchard and Sanderson. You can always go to Cale Makar (8000) as well.
• There’s plenty of guys down in the 4K range tonight. Darnell Nurse (4000), Thomas Harley (4200), and Luke Hughes (4400) probably garner 7-8% ownership each. They project pretty well industry-wide. I like Charlie McAvoy (4900) and Lane Hutson (5500) quite a bit as part of their respective stacks.
• If you want some cheap guys. I like Sean Walker (3400), Aaron Ekblad (3400), Matt Roy (3200), Alex Carrier (3100) and Tony DeAngelo (2900).
• Your cheap power play guys are: Artyom Lebshunov (3000), Scott Morrow (3300) and Drew Doughty (3400).

Synopsis: The double spend up or spending down to Levshunov seems like the chalky move tonight. I think spending up on two guys is fine, but Thomas Chabot is an incredibly strong play. Luke Hughes, Sean Walker, and Darnell Nurse also look great. 

 

 

NHL Goalies

 

• I suspect the highest owned goalies are Spencer Knight (7300) and Filip Gustavsson (8300) – but it will only be around 12% each
• Joey Daccord (7200) and Yaroslav Askarov (6800) seem fine tonight.

Synopsis: Play whoever you want

 

 

NHL Stacks and Theory

 

• VGK2 (Hertl/Dorofeyev/Saad) is the clear chalk. The build I listed above with the VGK PP and EDM2 will be very popular.
• VGK2 and LAK2 are easy passes for me.
• If we look at the lineups that have been winning these big slates – it’s a lot of 4/3/1 and 3/3/1/1 with mid-priced stacks and either two expensive defensemen or a high priced one-off or two. These are the constructions to target. You can also go with the expensive EDM or COL 4/5-man stacks. They’ve won from time to time as well.
• The books have everybody on the MIN Power Play at +225 or lower to score at least one power play point. That’s a pretty good indication that they should have some opportunities tonight. I really like them as an alternative to COL or EDM.
• The lines that really fit the winning formula for me are BUF PP, OTT1, MIN1, MTL1, NJ1, and BOS1 with a cheaper two-man or full line of something cheap like PHI2, PHI3, BUF2 or CGY1.
• Pivoting away from the double expensive defense build to guys in the 4K range seems like a reasonable way to go. I’m probably not inclined to go with Levshunov at his ownership
• Thomas Chabot is just too cheap. Same goes for Yaroslav Askarov and Joey Daccord.

NHL Synopsis

For smaller fields – I would probably pass on Vegas and go to somebody like OTT1, BOS1, or a combination of cheap lines to get McDavid/Draisaitl or Mackinnon/Makar. I just don’t think VGK2 is that strong of a play despite the projection. 20% ownership is a ton on a slate this size. It’s the easy pressure point for me.

In larger fields, choose your own adventure. I really like BUF as a lower owned team to target tonight. The MIN Power Play also looks like a strong pivot away from more popular COL and EDM. BOS, OTT, MTL, and both sides of NJ/NYI seem like reasonable targets as well. PHI2, PHI3, CGY1, and BUF2 are my favorite value plays, but follow the projections and sims. Good luck tonight!

*Line Data is drawn from moneypuck.com: 

https://moneypuck.com/lines.htm