With the season just shy of one-tenth of the way complete, it seems pretty certain we can write off Toronto, Boston, Vegas, and Colorado as busts this season. Too soon? Okay, too soon. While it is surprising those teams would NOT be in the playoffs if the season ended today, and it is equally surprising that Buffalo, Detroit, and San Jose WOULD be in the playoffs, it is important to remember that in a small sample size of seven or eight games almost anything can happen. That concept not only applies to team wins and losses, but to fantasy as well. Is Auston Matthews going to keep his 11-goal pace for the season? Is Brandon Tanev going to keep his 60-goal pace? I think we all know the answers to those questions.

Sometimes it just takes a little patience. For daily fantasy, perhaps if the public is overreacting to a slow or hot start by a player we can use that to our advantage. People may be getting burned and fed up playing Matthews with his hefty price tag and poor results thus far, but we know over an 82 game season Matthews is going to produce. Sometimes in DFS you have to adopt the mentality of a baseball pitcher and have a short memory. Maybe the last batter, or the previous day in fantasy didn't go well for you, but there's another batter and another day on deck. And just because Matthews didn't come through for you yesterday, doesn't mean he's any less likely to come through today.

With all that said, Matthews is on the slate tonight so you probably know where this is headed. He and the rest of the Leafs headline an eight-game slate, so let's take a look at some places to target. All prices are from DraftKings but plays can be applied to any site.

Primary Stacks
Toronto – As I mentioned in the open, here we are. No doubt Toronto is struggling right now with losses in four of their last five. They also really burned me last week getting absolutely blown out of the rink by a Penguins team playing with half of an AHL squad. BUT, short memory remember? I am going back to the well until Matthews ($8,400) puts up a 30 burger DraftKings score or I'm broke, whichever comes first. Sure, Matthews has only scored once in five games played but he is still averaging 21.5 minutes of ice time and 4.4 shots per game and we know it's only a matter of time until pucks start going in. At home against Detroit is about as good of a spot as you could hope for. The Leafs shifted the lines around last game and being they won I'd expect them to stick with it. William Nylander ($6,500) moved up alongside Matthews and as a result becomes the preferred stacking partner for Matthews. Michael Bunting ($4,000) remains on the other wing and is a good salary saver if necessary.

St. Louis – The Blackhawks have been getting absolutely blasted to start the season having given up a whopping 36 goals in eight games. On Saturday they'll find themselves on the second leg of a road back-to-back bouncing from Carolina out to St. Louis. It's not a great scenario for Chicago as the Blues have been one of the best teams to start the season and already put up two 7 spots in the goal column through six games. Ryan O'Reilly is in Covid protocol so you'll want to keep an eye on things to make sure no other cases pop up, but assuming all is well Brayden Schenn ($5,100) and David Perron ($6,400) skating on the top line and top power play together is my place to target. I'll be adding in Vladimir Tarasenko ($6,100) who's also on that power play and has gotten off to a hot start with four goals and seven points in his last four games. Torey Krug ($4,900) makes sense for the stack as well and James Neal is a minimum-priced dart throw at $2,500 who is seeing some power-play time and could possibly squeak out a goal.

Edmonton – Vancouver doesn't appear to be the cupcake defensive matchup they were for much of last season, but it's hard to overlook that in their last six meetings Edmonton has scored at least three goals five times. Also, Connor McDavid ($9,000) has gotten off to a red hot start with six goals and 15 points through seven games. Zach Hyman ($5,700) has been a nice addition to the Oilers thus far and is really benefiting playing alongside McDavid. He's up to six goals on the season already, five of which have come in the last three games. He's been seeing top power-play time too, which is where he's picked up half of his six goals, so all things considered he is my preferred stacking partner with McDavid. Tyson Barrie's ($4,800) price has come down significantly from the start of the season and has multiple points in two of the last three games, making him another option to add to the stack.

Secondary Stacks

Boston – The Bruins are going to go overlooked here for a few reasons. First off, the matchup with Florida and their 8-0 start will keep some away. But Florida will be on a road back-to-back which is a spot I always like to target. They also could be a bit distracted with Joel Quenneville resigning on Thursday. The other reason Boston should go overlooked is that there are plenty of other big names to pay up for on the slate like previously discussed Matthews, McDavid, and others not touched on like Nathan MacKinnon. It's very possible someone like David Pastrnak ($7,600) will simply fall through the cracks on this night. And that's a situation to take advantage of because Pasta and the rest of the top line of Patrice Bergeron ($6,700) and Brad Marchand ($7,300) have as high of a ceiling as any line in the sport.

Pittsburgh – With so many options to pay up for, we are going to need some salary saving lines to compliment those high-priced stacks. One to consider is in Pittsburgh. It sounds like Jeff Carter ($5,900) will be returning to the lineup Saturday and possibly Sidney Crosby ($5,500) as well. This one is a bit tricky because we're looking at three different possible line combinations depending on who does play. Judging from team beats from Friday's practice, I'm expecting both to play. If that is in fact the case, Carter will be skating with Jason Zucker ($4,200) and Kasperi Kapanen ($4,700) which is the line that offers us the salary relief we could be looking for. Carter and Kapanen will also be on the top power play unit and will be joined by John Marino ($3,900) who's filling in for Kris Letang. Marino's cheap price tag helps to extend this stack. If one of Carter or Crosby were to miss then I'd expect Evan Rodrigues ($4,200) to join the power play and potentially Carter's spot on the line itself, putting him firmly in play as a solid value as well.  

Value Stacks

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

John Tavares ($5,800), Mitch Marner ($5,900)

Tomas Hertl ($5,200), Erik Karlsson ($5,000)

Jordan Kyrou ($5,500), Pavel Buchnevich ($4,600), Justin Faulk ($5,600)

Cheap Power Play 1 Plugs:

C – J.T. Compher ($4,700), Jonathan Toews ($3,700), Sean Monahan ($3,400)

W – Patric Hornqvist ($3,700), Tanner Pearson ($3,500), Jesper Bratt ($3,100), Neal ($2,500)

D – Marino ($3,900), Keith Yandle ($3,800), Moritz Seider ($3,600)

Goalie Picks

Petr Mrazek ($6,500) *Major misprice here*

Jordan Binnington ($8,300)

Tristan Jarry ($8,000)

Connor Hellebuyck ($7,700)

Linus Ullmark ($7,800)

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!