NHL DFS – Fantasy Hockey Strategy Guide

Welcome to the NHL DFS – Fantasy Hockey Strategy Guide. In this article I will break down different methods and strategies used to play daily fantasy hockey. Hockey is one of the more difficult fantasy sports to play, especially if you don’t follow the game closely. With most other sports it’s mainly just about who’s playing that day and what position they’re playing.  With NHL DFS you need to do some research other than just knowing who is in the lineup that night. With 18 skaters and 1 goalie playing in every game it is critical you know what role each player is playing for their teams.

NHL DFS – Fantasy Hockey Strategy Guide

Basics

The way to win NHL DFS may sound quite obvious,score more points than everyone else, but it is very difficult to accomplish. NHL DFS is probably one of the lowest scoring of all fantasy sports where one shot on goal or blocked shot could be the difference between cashing and missing out. With all sports you must build a roster while staying under the salary cap. Before you start your roster build each day it is vital to know your site. You need to know what they award points for and what positions you can play. I mainly play on DraftKings where your roster consists of 2 centers, 3 wings, 2 defenseman, 1 goaltender, and 1 flex position.

On FanDuel the only difference is they don’t have a flex position but have and extra winger instead (4 in total). Besides the different positions both sites have a couple of stats that differ as well. On DraftKings you get bonus points for a player scoring a hat trick ( 3 goals in a single game) and for a shootout goal however you don’t get bonus points for these on FanDuel, but you do get bonus points for goals or assists scored on the power play, but not on DraftKings. Got it? Good!

Because of this stat difference it is vital to find players who play power play minutes. As far as goaltenders go the sites don’t differ in stat categories. If you plan on cashing each night you will need your goaltender to play well and most likely you will also need the win bonus. There will be many nights throughout the season that a losing goalie will get you negative points because you lose 1 point for every goal against and only .2 points per save ( these points are from DraftKings). You will also need to have 3-4 goal scorers on any given night to cash, you can probably get away with less for cash games since the goal there is just finish in the money because all prizes are the same no matter the place.

If you want to do well in GPP’s you will need to have those goal scorers and it wouldn’t hurt to have an assist or 3. Besides getting goal scorers and assists, you will need to find those players who take a lot of shots and block shots at a high rate (these are usually defenseman). It’s the fringe stats that I just mentioned that can truly set you apart from the rest of the pack, like I mentioned in the intro it can come down to a shot on goal or blocked shot that means cashing or not cashing on any given night.

NHL DFS – Fantasy Hockey Strategy Guide

Strategy: 

In this next section I will get into different strategies you can deploy when play NHL DFS. My first step every day when beginning my roster build is checking the Vegas lines for that night. The reasoning behind this is that Vegas spends much more, time, money and effort in assessing these games then I ever will researching fantasy sports. I use these lines for both deciding which games I want to target but more so for my goaltenders. When you are picking goalies it is best to target heavy favorites, you will generally have to pay up for these goalies, but it is worth it.

Goalies:

Like I said earlier you will need a good performance, and more often than not, the win to get you into the money on any given night. After looking at the Vegas lines and deciding which games are the best to choose your goalie from, the next step is to make sure he is starting. Some teams announce their starter early in the day or even the night before, but some like to wait until right before their game before announcing.  Most nights it is the usual starter who will be in between the pipes, but there will be times that the back up plays. Majority of teams play their starters between 55-60 games a season, meaning the back up only gets 20-25 games. There are multiple ways to check on the status of each teams starting goalie. You can check on Twitter as most teams beat writers tweet out who is starting each night throughout the day, you can also follow @RotowireNHL for updates as well instead of trying to find each teams beat writers. My personal favorite way to get this info is on the DailyFaceoff.com website.

When selecting your goalie for cash games it is best to pay up for the biggest favorite in the elite tier. Like with most other sports in fantasy it is best to take the safe play with the highest floor for your cash games. When it comes to GPP’s you still want to look for a winning match-up but you want to look for a goalie who isn’t going to be highly owned.

Looking ahead to opening night there are 4 games on the slate, the biggest favorite will most likely be the Flames against Vancouver, so I will most likely be targeting Mike Smith in this game. When it comes to a GPP goalie on a small slate like this you can approach it one of two ways, either keep the same goalie from your cash lineup because getting the win is most important, or you can go to a game that could be close because it is either two elite teams or a rivalry game.

On this slate we have 2 rivalry games and one with elite teams playing each other. I am going to wait until it closer to opening night but as of now I am leaning towards Carey Price. There are two reasons why, first he always seems to play well against the Maple Leafs and also he is one of the best goalies in the league as a former league MVP. Just remember that my goaltender strategy is just a suggestion but you should always begin your roster build by selecting  your goaltender as he will most likely be your most expensive player and dictate the rest of your roster build.

NHL DFS – Fantasy Hockey Strategy Guide

Skaters

After you decide which goaltender you are using your next step is to pick your skaters. You will want to start with a core of a few superstars. There will be nights on short slates where you are almost obligated to play guys like Sidney Crosby and Connor McDavid because even though they come with high price tags you don’t want to be the one person in your contest without them when they have 3 or 4 point nights. This isn’t for every night or for big GPP contests, but when it comes to your cash contests you will need to have a couple of high-priced superstars.

After I decide which top player(s) to target I want to look at who I am pairing them up with. I personally like to stack at least one player with someone else on their line. You want to try to maximize your point totals by picking up points for assists if your superstar does score. You want to make sure to target as many first line players (or first pair for defenseman) as you can as well as guys who play on the power play.

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You don’t always find players on the same power play unit and even strength line so there is another method of line stacking you can use in this instance. You can use one player from two different lines but on the same power play unit. This gives you exposure to two different lines and the same power play unit.  It is not a common method but you can use this if you are stacking from a team with a top power play against a poor penalty kill team.

You will need to find some value as with any DFS sport. This is where paying attention to each teams line combinations comes into play.  You can often find a team with cheap player playing on the first or second line and he would be a great stacking partner with your superstars. Not every team will have that type of player playing first or second line minutes unfortunately, but you can also find value on defense. There are a lot of quality value defenseman available on most nights and this is where paying attention to the peripheral stats comes in handy. At first glance a player may not score or assist much, but he may be a team’s leader in blocked shots or take a lot of shots which can add up to make value on the cheaper players.

Stacking

I mentioned stacking in the previous section  but I will expand on it a little in this section. Stacking is popular in every DFS sport and hockey is no different. When it comes to cash games you want to try to keep it to a minimum by stacking no more than 2 teams and 2 players from the same team (goalies not included). You want to make sure you don’t rely on one team or game so if that game doesn’t go as planned your entire night isn’t ruined. I like to use two members of the same line as one stack and then take a forward and defenseman from the same team who also are on the same power play unit as my second stack. I will then fill in with individual plays from other teams. This is also dependent on the slate size, obviously smaller slates will give you fewer options and you may to stack more. When playing gpp you may want to use a true line stack by using an entire forward line or 2 forwards and 1 defenseman.

NHL DFS – Fantasy Hockey Strategy Guide

Conclusion

At the end of the day succeeding in NHL DFS is just as much about following the game on a nightly basis as it is making the right roster choices. Remember that NHL DFS is still the smallest of the major sports when if comes to DFS but if you learn the game and come up with a good strategy you can become highly profitable. One thing I did not get into in this piece was the analytics being used in a hockey to help with fantasy.

I will be using certain stats when writing my daily articles and in the beginning I will try to explain them briefly when I used them. I will quickly define one of the best stats being used. Corsi is an advanced statistic used in the NHL to measure shot attempt differential while at even strength play. This includes shots on goal, missed shots on goal, and blocked shot attempts towards the opposition’s net minus the same shot attempts directed at your own team’s net. A good Corsi score is somewhere between 40 and 60, with anything 55 and up being elite and 45 and lower being a below average. Corsi measures offensive zone play. Players and teams with positive Corsi rates tend to spend more time in the offensive zone at five-on-five, something that’s predictive of success over the long-term.

Thank you for reading and I hope this was helpful in getting you ready for the new NHL daily fantasy season. As always you can follow me on Twitter @MVecchio81 and follow @FantasyCPR to get my daily NHL articles. Good luck and I hope you all have a profitabe 2018-2019 NHL season