I hope everyone enjoyed the holidays and the mini-hockey break that came along with it. It seems the break somewhat helped the Covid situation that was crippling the league in the days leading up, and while there are still some postponements it's nowhere near the amount we were seeing ten or so days ago. At the time of this writing, the Saturday schedule looks to be unaffected, which gives us nine games on the docket for New Year's Day. However instead of one big slate, DraftKings has decided to split it into a five-game slate for the early games and a four-game slate for the late ones. Let's run through some suggestions for each, quickly, since you could be reading this hung over.

Also, be sure to take a peek at our DraftKings DFS Player Evaluator over in the Frozen Tools to get another opinion on some plays for today's slate.

All prices are from DraftKings, but plays can be applied to any site.

Saturday – 1:00 PM EST – 5 Game Slate

Stacks to Consider

Boston – Not much to elaborate on here, the Sabres have been plagued by goaltending problems much of the season and are allowing plenty of goals. The Bruins are mostly back to full strength, which means their top line of Patrice Bergeron, David Pastrnak, and Brad Marchand will be together and should have plenty of chances to find the back of the net. You can look at Craig Smith and Taylor Hall as a cheap mini stack in lineups that forgo the top line.

Florida – The Panthers unloaded Thursday with nine goals and get what is probably an even better matchup Saturday with the Canadiens in town. Sam Montembeault figures to be in net for Montreal, which is good news for Florida since he's allowed four, five, and four goals in his last three starts. I'll be targeting the top line with Aleksander Barkov, Carter Verhaeghe, and Anthony Duclair. The second line of Sam Reinhart and Jonathan Huberdeau is in an equally as good of a spot, so be sure to use that line as well. Aaron Ekblad is the premier defenseman option to pair with either line.

Nashville – Chicago looks to be without both of their top goalie options on Saturday, which means Collin Delia likely gets the call in this one. With Chicago's defensive struggles to begin with, look for the Predators to get some good looks in this one. Mikael Granlund, Filip Forsberg, and Matt Duchene is the line I'd look at there and you can add Alexandre Carrier to the stack who is very cheap and has been filling in for Roman Josi on the top power play unit.

New York Islanders – The Oilers have allowed 10 goals since play resumed this week and now catch an Islanders team trying to salvage their season. Give a look to Jean-Gabriel Pageau and Anthony Beauvillier for a super cheap mini stack to plug in with some of the higher-priced stacks above.

Value Options

C – Jean-Gabriel Pageau, Anton Lundell, Ryan Johansen

W – Craig Smith, Warren Foegele, Patric Hornqvist

D – Brandon Montour, Carrier, Brett Pesce

Goalies

Sergei Bobrovsky

Juuse Saros

Linus Ullmark

Saturday – 7:00 PM EST – 4 Game Slate

Stacks to Consider

Toronto – Mitch Marner returns to the Leafs lineup in this one and figures to be reunited with Auston Matthews. This duo would be the premier option on almost any slate, but when it's just four games and the matchup is a home tilt with Ottawa, well that's about as good as it gets. The only downside here is it's so obvious so they will have plenty of ownership. If you can stomach it, your best chance of actually winning a tournament on this slate might be fading the Leafs and going elsewhere.

Ottawa – If fading the Leafs, you might as well go all in and stack the Senators. It's not as crazy as it seems as their top line of Josh Norris, Brady Tkachuk, and Drake Batherson was red hot going into the break. If this game doesn't go as expected, you can put yourself in a pretty good position relative to the field with the Sens.

Los Angeles – My favorite spot on this small slate outside of the Toronto game goes to the Kings, who get a juicy matchup with the Flyers. Martin Jones figures to be in net here and while he hasn't been awful of late, the Kings should be very familiar with him thanks to his time in San Jose. Look at the top line for LA of Anze Kopitar, Alex Iafallo, and Adrian Kempe with Viktor Arvidsson in consideration as well.

Value Plays

C – Robert Thomas, Elias Pettersson, Phillip Danault

W – Marcus Johansson, Kevin Fiala, Joel Farabee

D – Carson Soucy, Sean Durzi, Oliver Ekman-Larsson

Goalies

Jonathan Quick

Jack Campbell

Thatcher Demko

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!