With no Edmonton to pay up for, Toronto in a somewhat tough matchup, and a few other top teams such as Florida and Tampa Bay excluded from this Saturday slate, we've got the chance to get a little weird and play (and in my case write about) a few teams that normally might not make the cut. I enjoy slates like these so I hope that excitement translates to some DFS tournament success. Let's get right into some spots I'm targeting on this ten-game slate. All prices are from DraftKings but plays can be applied to any site.

Primary Stacks
Colorado – At a quick glance this might not look like the first place to target tonight, however my hope is that is what the field will think as well and the Avalanche could fly a bit under the radar. While Columbus teams of the past were more known for their defense, the 2021 version of the Blue Jackets are currently allowing the second-most shots per game which should help give a Colorado stack a little higher floor than normal. Even better news for the Avalanche is that they will be back to near full strength as Mikko Rantanen ($7,700) is set to return to the lineup and likely slot back in to the top line alongside Nathan MacKinnon ($8,700) and Gabriel Landeskog ($6,700). MacKinnon and Rantanen are my preferred options but I'd make sure to extend out to Landeskog for a few lineups. A cheaper add-on to the stack would be one of the Colorado defensemen such as Bowen Byram ($4,400), Devon Toews ($4,500), or Samuel Girard ($2,900) who all worthy plays.

Seattle – Anybody playing the Coyotes this year is instantly fantasy relevant to start with and when Arizona is on a back-to-back like they will be Saturday, that relevance only increases. It appears the Coyotes will either be going with Karel Vejmelka in net for what will be the second night in a row or Scott Wedgewood who they just claimed off waivers from New Jersey on Thursday. Either way, this is a spot to attack for the Kraken. I think most people are going to play Jordan Eberle ($4,800) here coming off his hat trick on Thursday and I wouldn't fault anyone who does, but I'm going to focus in on Yanni Gourde ($5,100) who is seeing top power-play time but has yet to really have that big game in a Seattle uniform. He has gone scoreless in four straight, but this feels like the spot to end that streak. I'm going to stack him with Calle Jarnkrok ($2,900) and Mark Giordano ($5,800) for a very affordable power-play one stack in a great matchup. Jarnkrok carries some major risk as he's yet to record even one point in six games, but this is a play on opportunity more than anything and you don't need much with his near minimum price tag.

New York Islanders – Speaking of ignoring early season struggles in favor of opportunity, hello Anders Lee ($6,900). Lee has gotten off to a terribly slow start coming off his ACL tear with just one goal and zero assists in seven games. His running mate Mathew Barzal ($6,700) hasn't been doing much either with just four points in eight games. Also, the Isles' second line just exploded on Thursday with four goals from Brock Nelson ($5,300), who is still much lower priced than either Barzal or Lee. Put this all together and you're left with basically nobody who is going to play the Isles top line tonight. I always want to try and be ahead of the breakout instead of behind, so I will fire up some Isles 1 tonight hoping to catch some positive regression here. I'll be adding in Josh Bailey ($3,400) and Noah Dobson ($4,000) to stacks to help even out the hefty price tags. The matchup isn't terrible as Winnipeg will be on a back-to-back and starting either Connor Hellebuyck, who's been battling an illness all week, or Eric Comrie who would be in net for the second straight night.

Secondary Stacks

Washington – There's a good argument to be made that Alex Ovechkin ($9,000) and friends deserve to be in the primary section of this article, it's just the price tags make it hard to fit much around him. However, the Flyers simply had no answer for Ovi last season as he scored at least one goal in all six games against Philadelphia with a grand total of eight. Evgeny Kuznetsov ($7,400) and John Carlson ($6,100) are the preferred stacking partners here but like I mentioned, you'll pay for them. Ovechkin can do enough on his own though so I don't mind playing him solo or with someone like Conor Sheary ($2,700) in the hopes of just picking up a power play assist.

San Jose – Another team on a back-to-back tonight is New Jersey, which puts the Sharks in play for me. San Jose has been dealing with Covid issues so you'll want to double check their lines in warmups but if Timo Meier ($7,400) were to get activated for this one he'd be a great low-owned play. Assuming he doesn't, I'm looking at Tomas Hertl ($5,600) and Brent Burns ($7,400) as my primary stacking options with Rudolfs Balcers ($2,500) added in for salary relief. Hertl has 12 shots, three goals, and two assists across his last three games good for an average of 20.2 DraftKings points during the stretch.

Value Stacks

Here a few affordable stacks you can use to round out your lineups:

Tyler Bertuzzi ($5,700), Lucas Raymond ($4,900), Moritz Seider ($4,800)

Nick Suzuki ($5,800), Tyler Toffoli ($4,600), Brendan Gallagher ($4,400)

Eberle ($4,800), Jaden Schwartz ($3,800)

Cheap Power Play 1 Plugs:

C – Michael Rasmussen ($3,500), Nick Bonino ($3,300), Adam Brooks ($2,500)

W – James van Riemsdyk ($3,700), Ryan Donato ($3,400), Evgenii Dadonov ($3,200), Joel Armia ($2,500)

D – Byram ($4,400), Dobson ($4,000), Keith Yandle ($3,800)

Goalie Picks

Philipp Grubauer ($8,400)

Cam Talbot ($7,400)

Ilya Sorokin ($7,700)

Adin Hill ($8,300)

Igor Shesterkin ($7,300)

Be sure to double check your lineups before lock for any last-minute scratches or goalie changes. If you follow me on Twitter @SteveDotzel you can subscribe to my "DFS-NHL" list which is comprised of several team beat writers tweeting the most recent news in real-time. You can also reach out to me personally and I'll do my best to answer any questions I can. Hope to see you on top of the leaderboards!