NHL Overview – October 13th, 2025

Hope everyone had a good Sunday. Congratulations to the winners from Saturday’s NHL slate. RIP my 40% stand on Columbus. We’ve got a fun little 5-game slate tonight, so let’s get into a game with more competitive pricing (cough…nfl…cough). I’ll mention the standouts and give you a feel for where the Industry is ownership-wise. Then I’ll let you know on where sims are using multiple major models, where PD is at and where I’m at.

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 Positional Overview

Center

We have some extreme chalk here in Logan Cooley (5200) at about 35% ownership. H’es part of what I think will be – by far – the chalkiest line of the night in UTA1. There’s more hype around Utah than anyone else in the NHL to start the year
We then have Jack Hughes (7500), Nico Hischier (6400), Jack McBain (3000), Marco Rossi (4000), and Sean Couturier (4100) all between 14-20% ownership. J. Hughes, Hischier, and Rossi all simulate well across the industry in both large and small fields.
Jack Hughes projects as one of the better raw points plays on the slate – so it will be tempting to play him as a one-off. A word of caution: There is extremely strong long-term correlation between Hughes and Jesper Bratt (6400). Bratt has assisted on a huge percentage of Hughes’ goals over the past 3 years (in the neighborhood of 70-75%). It’s a smaller slate so I’m not saying you can’t play Jack Hughes as a one-off, but be aware of that correlation.
All of the above plays seem fine. However, the UTA ownership is extreme – even for this slate size.
PD (once again) likes Columbus here so Sean Monahan (5100) and Adam Fantilli (5200) are both firmly in play. This will be even more true if Jake Allen (NJ, G) takes some of the ownership assigned to Gustavsson (G, MIN) who will be on the bench tonight. How the goalie ownership shakes out is a big variable here we don’t yet know. I’ll update the article or drop revised analysis in discord. once we do know.
Frank Nazar (4500), Pius Suter (3800) and Filip Chytil (4100) look like solid values on the cheap end to me. Chicago will be facing the super-chalk Mammoth, so you could look at Connor Bedard (6100) as well. I will be playing Chytil as a one-off all year. He’s just a dynamic scorer playing with garbage linemates.
The clear standout in the sims industry-wide are the Blues. Brayden Schenn (4900) centers a STL2 line that’s been an excellent line since it was assembled last year. Pius Suter (3900) centers their better PP unit with their best scorers in Kyrou and Holloway. Robert Thomas (7000) projects better in our models than most and simulates as the best center on the board industry-wide. He’s an elite hockey player, but not a volume shooter.
If you want a cheap way to differentiate your chalky UTA stack you can dump Kevin Stenlund (2900) on top of it. He’s low owned and projects okay
I will address the Kings later, but I do like grandpa Anze Kopitar (5300) at 1% ownership.

Synopsis: The clear chalk is Utah and Cooley at around 35%. In smaller fields you can’t go wrong sticking with Hughes, Hischier, and Rossi. NJ sims as a strong small field play industry-wide. They will carry lots of ownership though. If you want a pivot Chytil and Nazar seems like solid choices. Large Field Sims industry-wide like the Blues (Thomas, Schenn) and Wild (Rossi, Eriksson Ek). Our models (and my sims using PD projections) like Columbus (Monahan, Fantilli). I think old man Kopitar is a sleeper here with solid correlation to his linemates.

Wing

Everything Mammoth is the stone chalk here. Dylan Guenther (6800) and JJ Peterka (4900) are likely to be in the mid-30s ownership-wise. While it’s excessive, Peterka is clearly underpriced and a reasonable guy to play as a one-off.
Kaprizov (8000), Boldy (7600) and Keller (6700) come in with 20-24% ownership each. Kaprizov is the top spend on the slate and completely underpriced. He’s underowned imo
Nick Schmaltz (4500), Timo Meier (7100), Dawson Mercer (4000), and Jesper Bratt (6400) come in at around 15% each as the 3rd ownership tier. Schmaltz is underpriced. I will not be playing Bratt without Jack Hughes.
PD is definitely high on Jordan Kyrou (6100) and I completely agree. The Blues are underowned. Kirill Marchenko (6500), Carter Verhaege (6000), Brad Marchand (6300), and Adrian Kempe (6800) also look like strong plays at lower ownership
On the cheaper end Dimitri Voronkov (4600), Kent Johnson (5100), and Ryan Donato (4400) join Peterka/Schmaltz as strong values. I also like Teravainen (4300) and Bertuzzi (4200) as part of the CHI2 stack. Sharpshooter Andrei Kuzmenko (4700) has zero ownership as a part of LAK1 and PP1. I’m a fan.
Mathieu Olivier (2700) looks like a strong punt if you need him. Vladimir Tarasenko (3900) is a way to differentiate a MIN stacks as well.

Synopsis: Kaprizov is underpriced and the top play here for me by a lot. The Utah guys are so owned that I think they’re worth a fade if you’re not playing a 6-man stack of them. Sims agree with that position. NJ looks like the smaller field play according to Industry-wide sims, but STL2 also sneaks in there. You could also play MIN and drop Tarasenko on top for some added PP correlation. The large field plays look like CBJ 1/2 and STL 2. I also love Adrian Kempe (6800) and Andrei Kuzmenko (4700) at no ownership.

Defense

Dougie Hamilton (5400), Quinn Hughes (7400) and Mikhail Sergachev (5500) are the guys in the low-to-mid 20s in ownership. Zach Werenski (7800) comes in around 15%.
Matt Grzelcyk (2900) looks like the punt du jour on this slate
Aaron Ekblad (4900), Sam Rinzel (4600), and Luke Hughes (4400) all come in around 10% for those who want the PP guys.
Jonas Brodin (3600) is underpriced, carries, some ownership, and is worth adding to a MIN stack. Zeev Buium (4000) doesn’t project for much ownership industry-wide, but I don’t buy that MIN1 is 18-20% and it’s PP1 defensemen is low owned. I think he’s closer to 10%
Dante Fabbro (3600) plays next to Werenski and projects as a decent cheaper end value. You can always play CLS1 with both defensemen to be ultra-contrarian and well-projected tonight.
Cam Fowler (5000) and Drew Doughty (4400) are PP1 defensemen with zero ownership. Fowler Sims extremely well.
Colton Parayko (5400) is a super-productive guy without much ownership. He’s always a threat to get both bonuses, but this probably isn’t the spot

Synopsis: Hamilton, Sergachev, and Q. Hughes are the chalky guys here with Werenski just behind at 17%. I could see there being a bigger gap there though. Cam Fowler, Jonas Brodin, Zach Werenski, and Dougie Hamilton sim the best industry-wide regardless of field size. Hamilton is definitely underpriced for his role on PP1. You’ll have to bump Buium’s projection if you want him to sim well. His industry-wide projections are lousy.

Goalies

It’s Spencer Knight (7000) and then everyone else as far as myself and Industry-wide sims are concerned. Darcy Kuemper (7600) pops up a little bit too
Wallstedt (7900) being in for Gustavsson, Vanacek (8400) being in for Vejmelka, and Allen (8000) being in for Markstrom will shake up goalie ownership. I don’t have enough updated ownership to aggregate. Therefore, I’ll have to update later.
Dan Vladar (7200) projects the best for us. I think Knight is the better play for the leverage he provides. Vladar is also terrible, but that matters little. Goalie skill is only a very marginal factor compered to variance and the defense in front of them.

Synopsis: Play Spencer Knight. Kuemper and Vladar pop up a little in sims, but far less than Knight

Stacks and Theory

As you can see the chalk is everything UTA. If you want to play them, you can either A) put Stenlund on top of your stack or B) play both defensemen associated with the line you’re playing.
Industry-wide sims suggest that NJ1 or 2 are the top plays for smaller fields with STL2 or CHI2/PP coming in behind them as secondary stacks.
Our sims (at the time of this article) like NJ 4/5/6-man stacks and/or STL 3/4/5-man stacks for small field. They also like Dougie Hamilton and Cam Fowler. They lean toward larger 5 and 6-man stacks in this format, but 4-mans are fine as well
Our sims like CBJ 4/5-mans, STL 3/4/5-mans, and to a lesser extent MIN 4/5-mans for large field GPPs. They also like Werenski, Fowler, and Brodin
They don’t project well, but I do like LAK1 quite a bit here as a large field play. Wallstedt really struggled in the AHL last year and was even worse in the little NHL run he got. MIN has also been known to pick up penalties, though their PK has historically been strong. LAK1 is fully correlated on the PP with two excellent NHL shooters in Kempe and Kuzmenko.
FLA1 is a line that is kind of being forgotten. They sim poorly, but they have a reasonable top finish rate. They’re a way to go If you want to play UTA2.
I don’t necessarily love doing it, but if you want something cheap CLS3 looks fine. I also think Donato/Mikheyev/Grzelcyk/Murphy as a 4-man paired with Knight presents some value.
Kaprizov is still underpriced. He’s much easier to play as a one-off now that Boldy is 7600.
Spencer Knight is the best goalie play by a lot.

NHL Sims

Industry-wide sims suggest that NJ1 or 2 are the top plays for smaller fields with STL2 or CHI2/PP coming in behind them as secondary stacks. They pop using multiple projection and ownership models. CBJ1 and Werenski are also outstanding lower-owned guys for large field GPPs. I think Spencer Knight is the best goalie play on the slate by a wide margin, so I do think cheap CHI guys make sense as value. CLS3 also seems fine if you want cheap access to PD’s favorite offense tonight. My favorite offense is the Kings and LAK1 tonight though. They just have no ownership and are in a strong matchup against a more popular team with a weak AHL goaltender. The STL2 also sims extremely well across all formats. Lastly, if you want to play the chalk team on this slate – don’t be afraid to be different with your construction. If you want to play UTA1, attach low owned Marino at D, both Marino and Sergachev, or Stenlund to them to reduce combunatorial ownership. NHL DFS is like Three-Dimensional MLB DFS. You can get leverage not only against – but adjacent – to the chalk. Two lines can’t be on the ice at once for the same team after all.