Dobber Hockey has officially entered the DFS space which if in case you missed it, our DFS subscription service, complete with our lineup optimizer, launched this week. If you want to see more, check out the link below where we're running a promotion:

“Try Our Daily Fantasy Tools – Thousands of Simulations Run Instantaneously to Provide You with the Most Optimized Lineup – Order Now and Get $20 Off!”

If you're someone new to the site and reading this article for the first time, I suggest going back through some of my previous Saturday DFS articles when you have some time as I try to give some detailed strategy advice whenever possible. For a quick primer though in what to do with the most optimized lineup and what contests to play, here's my take on it.

Optimized NHL lineups are great for cash-style and small field contests. "Cash" contests are loosely defined as ones that pay out close to 50% of the field. In the DraftKings lobby – head-to-heads, double ups, and 50/50s are great examples of these contests. Even triples ups, which pay 33%, are acceptable. Optimized lineups are also best for are small tournaments such as 20 players, 40 players, and leagues you may be in likely up to around 100 entries or so.

In these formats, you're looking to build the most well-rounded lineup you can and that's what optimizers do best. A good optimizer such as ours helps you find those value plays that are the key and by running thousands of simulations, provide you the players that are the most likely to succeed on a given slate. Often times you can just plug and play the optimized lineup, maybe with a few minor tweaks, into these formats without giving much thought to ownership, correlation, or game theory in general. And you can likely do quite well.

As far as large field tournaments of a few hundred into the thousands of entries, there you will likely only want to use the optimizer as a tool, not gospel. My findings by tracking large field tournament winning lineups over the past few months has strongly indicated that correlation through stacking of linemates and power-play units is the most successful strategy, which is something an optimized lineup is unlikely to give you. The extreme top-heavy nature of these tournaments where you're looking to build a lineup in the top 0.1% of all lineups leads itself to a much more all-or-nothing approach than you would want for a cash, small field tourney, or league-type lineup where you quite simply are looking to avoid risk, not run towards it.

The best advice I can offer is to play a little bit of everything at first and see what you like or do well at. Try to keep in mind the contest type you're in and be cognizant of the type of lineup you should build for it. Be sure to review the top lineups from whatever contests you were in, and make note of how those lineups were built. And lastly, you want to track your results so you know what is/isn't working. You're not going to win every day in NHL no matter what you're doing, so you'll need a bit of a sample before you can evaluate anything.

Hopefully some of you find all of that helpful. I gear the rest of this article towards large field tournaments, which is shaping up to be a nice compliment to the optimizer, which should be your go-to for most all other formats. As a result, my focus is mainly on stacks and correlation and trying to build lineups that might finish in last, but have the potential for when things go right, to come in first as well. We've got seven games on the main slate for tonight, so let's dive in. All players and prices are from DraftKings but can be applied to any site.

Four-Player Stacks under $25,000

Something I've touched on in past articles but if you're new it's worth repeating, I like to keep the four-player stacks to a combined salary of $25,000 or less for two reasons. First, that's what the majority of winning lineups that I reviewed did. And second, which is why I'd assume it worked for those lineups, is that it still allows you enough salary for the rest of your lineup to fill it out with solid plays, not simply just punts. The $25,000 number is not set in stone, as you'll see below, but I find it as a reasonable soft ceiling.

Boston – The Bruins are playing well with wins in eight of ten while the Blue Jackets frankly are not, with losses in five straight. With the Bruins on home ice, I'd expect both of those trends to continue. Jake DeBrusk is priced back down to $3,400 from previous highs closer to $5,000 just two weeks ago, and that's despite scoring in three straight games. His reduced tag allows you to fit in the more well-known Boston skaters like Patrice Bergeron ($7,400), Brad Marchand ($7,400), and David Pastrnak ($7,900). Pair two of those three with Debrusk and Charlie McAvoy ($5,800) to get a four-player stack in a plum matchup while remaining under that $25,000 number.

Calgary – Targeting players against teams on road back-to-backs is one of my favorite strategies, and the Blues are the only team that fits the mold on this slate, putting me on the Flames. Stacking Calgary isn't really something you'd have to twist my arm to do anyway as evident with their nine-goal outburst last Saturday that dominated the night. Fortunately we can fit the big three from the Flames – Elias Lindholm ($6,900), Johnny Gaudreau ($6,900), and Matthew Tkachuk ($6,800) – into a stack with a top-pair defenseman such as Noah Hanifin ($3,800).

Tampa Bay – A back-to-back here for the Lightning, but with both games at home and no need to travel, I'm not too concerned. Tampa has won four straight meanwhile the glow around the Canadiens from when Martin St. Louis took over has started to fade as they've lost nine of 12. I'm stretching my $25,000 rule ever so slightly here for the stack of Nikita Kucherov ($7,500), Steven Stamkos ($6,700), Brayden Point ($6,200), and Mikhail Sergachev ($4,700) which totals $25,100. But it's worth it having those three forwards in one lineup who can do tons of damage.

Three-Player Stacks to Mix In

Winnipeg – With Kyle Connor likely still on the Covid list, Nikolaj Ehlers ($6,200) gets the biggest bump in opportunity moving up to both the top line and top power play. A player talented enough to take advantage like Ehlers is certainly a spot I want to include in lineups. You can stack him with Mark Scheifele ($6,100) and Paul Stastny ($3,000) for a very affordable three-player one that you can combine with stacks from above.

Philadelphia – Nothing sexy about this stack, it's purely a price play, but getting a top line/top power play trio for just over $12,000 opens up plenty with the rest of your lineup. If you can get one full line goal, you're happy and two goals and you should have a chance at the top of the leaderboards. The stack I'm talking about is Cam Atkinson ($4,800), James van Riemsdyk ($3,000), and Ivan Provorov ($4,300). Travis Sanheim ($3,300) can be subbed for Provorov for even more savings.

Los Angeles – The Kings have several options from their top two lines that are right around $5,000 in salary that you can combine for a three-player stack. I will go with the trio of Anze Kopitar ($5,400), Phillip Danault ($5,000), and Adrian Kempe ($5,000) as my preferred three but have no issues mixing in Alex Iafallo ($4,600) or Sean Durzi ($5,300) as well.

By using the four-player stacks from the first section (or plucking three of the four from those) combined with the three-player stacks from above, you can build yourself 4-3-1 or 3-3-1-1 constructed lineups, which are two of the most successful large field tournament strategies.

Cheap Power Play 1 Plugs

C – Morgan Frost ($2,500), Christian Dvorak ($3,400)

W – Gustav Nyquist ($2,600), van Riemsdyk ($3,000), Jakub Voracek ($3,200), Josh Anderson ($3,300), Alex Killorn ($3,600)

D – Nick Leddy ($2,600), Alex Goligoski ($2,700), Sanheim ($3,300)

Goalie Picks

Jack Campbell ($8,000)

Connor Hellebuyck ($7,800)

Marc-Andre Fleury ($7,400)

Jonathan Quick ($7,600)

Ville Husso ($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!