I'm hesitant to say it, but I feel like the NHL season is really starting to hit its stride. Covid cases are starting to decline and the news this week that asymptomatic players will no longer be tested following the All-Star break should help in keeping those numbers down. That should benefit us both in season long and daily fantasy in terms of rosters, as the surprise scratches should decrease. Now if guys are sick, they won't play, and if they're not sick, they will play. Makes sense to me. 

On the schedule front, after what felt like weeks of alternating days of many games/few games this past Thursday marked the first of 14 consecutive days of at least four games scheduled leading up to the break. I for one am really looking forward to this stretch and getting back into a more normal routine.

With a nice nine game slate on tap for Saturday, let's check out some spots to target. All prices are from DraftKings but plays can be applied to any site.

Primary Stacks

Colorado – When you take a quick glance at Saturday's schedule, two spots immediately jump out. The Avalanche at home is the first and while it will by no means be sneaky, it's hard to see a team playing this well completely failing here. Winners of 15 of their last 17, Colorado is in the midst of one of the best stretches in team history and Montreal is well, not. The Canadiens have allowed 104 shots on goal over the last two games. Read that again. 104. If Cayden Primeau sees that type of volume on Saturday, he's not going to have a very good time.

Nathan MacKinnon ($9,500) is the obvious play here but it sure is tough to stack him with Mikko Rantanen ($8,300) or Gabriel Landeskog ($6,400) given the price tags. Try mixing in someone like Erik Johnson ($3,400) or Samuel Girard ($4,100) for some salary relief and/or dropping to the second line of Nazem Kadri ($7,500), Andre Burakovsky ($4,900), and Logan O'Connor ($3,000) for a discount in the same plum matchup.

Washington – The other spot I referenced above belongs to the Capitals with the Senators in town. Outside of Alex Ovechkin ($8,500) they don't come with the steep price tags that Colorado does making them easier to stack. In fact with the absence of John Carlson (Covid) and Dmitry Orlov (suspension) the two defenseman for the Caps taking their spots on the power play – Justin Schultz ($3,200) PP1 and Trevor van Riemsdyk ($3,500) PP2 are two great sources of salary relief whether you're stacking Washington or just need some plugs. Outside of the obvious in Ovechkin consider the second line stack of Nicklas Backstrom ($4,600) and Tom Wilson ($4,700) who are fully correlated at even strength and the power play.

Nashville – The under the radar stack I like targeting for tonight to get away from the high ownership that will come with Colorado and Washington is Nashville. Their opponent, the Red Wings, just played last night and started their top goaltender Alex Nedeljkovic in that one so I'd expect to see Thomas Greiss and his dreadful .894 save percentage or an AHL call up on Saturday. Despite the act of having to travel to Nashville overnight itself, Detroit has really struggled on the road this season where they've allowed 3.95 goals per game which is a mark bested by only Montreal. The top line for Nashville of Filip Forsberg ($5,800), Matt Duchene ($5,700), and Mikael Granlund ($4,900) is the target here with Roman Josi ($8,200) likely the top defenseman on the slate.

Secondary Stacks

New York – While you have to respect the Coyotes effort of late, having won four of five over the last two weeks against teams not named the Colorado Avalanche, I'm still fine stacking against them here. The Rangers power play is the target which means you're looking at some combination of Mika Zibanejad ($7,100), Chris Kreider ($5,900), Ryan Strome ($5,400), and Artemi Panarin ($6,200). Reverting back to even strength lines while the price tags are better for Strome and Panarin my lean is to play the goal scoring upside that Mika and Kreider possess instead.

Calgary – With the jacked-up salaries on some of the guys in the primary stacks this week, you're going to need some spots for value and I think the second line for Calgary is a great place to get it. Since the calendar flipped to 2022, Blake Coleman ($3,300) actually leads the entire team with 27 shots over those six games. At 4.5 per game that puts him firmly in contention for the five shot bonus on DraftKings which is not something we normally get with a player priced below $3.5K. Stack Coleman with Mikael Backlund ($3,400) and/or Andrew Mangiapane ($4,000) for a very affordable stack against a struggling Oilers team. 

Value Stacks

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

Andrei Svechnikov ($5,100), Vincent Trocheck ($5,100), Nino Niederreiter ($3,600)

Anthony Cirelli ($4,300), Alex Killorn ($4,300), Steven Stamkos ($5,500)

Tanner Jeannot ($2,900), Yakov Trenin ($2,500), Mattias Ekholm ($3,700)

Cheap Power Play 1 Plugs

C – Jean-Gabriel Pageau ($3,700), Travis Boyd ($3,500), Sean Monahan ($3,000)

W – Oliver Wahlstrom ($3,700), Kailer Yamamoto ($2,900), Matt Boldy ($2,500)

D – Schultz ($3,200), Chris Wideman ($2,500), Calen Addison ($2,500)

Goalie Picks

Juuse Saros ($8,000)

Antti Raanta ($8,300)

Vitek Vanecek ($8,100)

Karel Vejmelka ($7,000)

Jacob Markstrom ($7,700)

Go check out our DraftKings DFS Player Evaluator over in the Frozen Tools to get another perspective on some plays for tonight's slate.

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!