What’s up everyone. I’m Nik (kikikartier in discord) and I’m pleased to be doing some NHL content for Paydirt DFS this year!
NHL starts today, so I thought it would be a decent idea to talk about stacking, game theory, defense salary allocation, and some of the changes that the NHL has made this offseason. Use this article in conjunction with the NHL models and Contest Sims to give yourself a real chance at winning each and every slate.
This is going to be a long form article, so feel free to save the link and reference it in the future!
NHL Stacking
It will shock everyone to hear this – it’s field size, context, and slate size dependent. 4/3/1, 3/3/2, and 3/3/1/1 (with the 1s being defensemen) are by far the most popular stack structures utilized by the field. They also have the highest win equity. However, that doesn’t mean that they show positive leverage in the context of the top 1% and 0.1% of lineups. I’m going to address this by field size.
Smaller Fields (less than 1,000 entries)
The data shows that you don’t need to be too fancy here. 4/3/1 and 3/3/2 are strong, but 3/3/1/1 is pretty overplayed in comparison to it’s representation in the top 0.1%. The lineup constructions that show the most leverage are actually 5/2/1, 3/3/2, or 4/2/2 (with two defensemen and two F/Cs from the same team). However, 5/2/1 and 4/2/2 aren’t represented in close to as many raw winning lineups as the three most popular constructions. They’re just underplayed. If you want to stack a popular team, they are reasonable routes to go if they project well enough.
Large Fields
The data shows something similar for larger fields, but it’s somewhat deceptive. 4/3/1 also includes lineups with F/Cs split between lines that can be extremely contrarian, well-projected, and aren’t close to as commonly played in smaller fields. I tend to think this is where the 3/3/2, 4/2/2 Double defense and 5/2/1 lineups constructions are much more viable as well. You may not need them in the smaller fields, but they make a ton of sense in contests like the DK flagship where having plenty of well-projected leverage is ideal. I also like turning the 4/3/1 over and making the one-off a scoring center or wing quite a bit as well.
Small Slates (4 games or less) vs full slates
The smaller the slate, the harder it gets to stick to the basic stacking formats, play the best projected stuff, and still be leveraged enough to win. This is where the more unorthodox stacking formats discussed above also show some EV.
Power Play stacks
Power play stacks are certainly a popular way to get different. They also look great because they tend to have strong raw projections and feature the biggest names. However, it’s worth noting that Penalties occurred at the lowest rate recorded since the 70s last season. I do not expect penalties to go up substantially – or at all – this year. I’ll address that further below.
Defense
Data from last year shows that sticking to PP defensemen that project well is fine in smaller fields. However, spending up on defensemen instead of the lower end PP guys continues to be a solid source of EV in large field contests. I believe that due to the decrease in penalties, spending up on raw points at defense will show to be +EV in all field sizes by the middle of this year.
Goalies
Good Luck. I will probably just play whomever my sims give me, but there’s certainly merit to just playing the goalie against the chalkiest offense.
NHL Game Theory
There are several other ways to create leverage and/or be different. I’m not going into much detail on them since they’re somewhat self explanatory
- Stack against the chalk goalie
- play the goalie against the most popular team
- drop one player from a line and attach a well projected player on the same team from a different line
- attach a same team well-projected depth skater to your first or second line stack
- power play stack with a non-PP defensemen
- play non-PP defensemen that project well.
Pricing
I wanted to come back around to a point that James repeatedly made last year – It becomes profitable to be under the field on skaters priced at 8500-9000 and up on full slates. There often just isn’t enough of a difference in production between them and the 6-7K guys to justify the expense. We will see how pricing unfolds this season and I will address this repeatedly moving forward.
Penalties
Earlier I mentioned that penalties were at their lowest level since the 1970s last year. They decreased over 1,000 PIM over 2023. The NHL has made two rule changes* that I expect will result in penalties continuing to decrease:
- Interference (rule 56): the wording in the rulebook has been changed from “a minor penalty for interference shall be imposed” to “a minor penalty for interference can be imposed”
This implies that it is now entirely up to the official weather they choose to impose a penalty for interference. There is no longer a clear directive to do so.
- High Sticking (rule 60): the definition used to be “a stick which is carried above the opponent’s shoulders”. It has now changed to “a stick which contacts an opponent’s shoulders, provided their shoulders are at waist level or higher”
It’s not clear how much this will actually decrease penalties – if at all. However, it now seems even more unlikely that penalties will increase this season
* https://scoutingtherefs.com/2025/09/49364/nhl-rule-book-updates-for-2025-26/
Conclusion
I sincerely hope this was helpful weather you just needed a refresher or are new to NHL DFS. Thank you for reading and I look forward to providing more content as the season moves along.