Can you believe that we are just weeks away from the start of the 2016-17 NHL season?

Hockey is far from being the most popular sport in America, but last season, many avid fantasy players were able to get a taste of fantasy hockey thanks to DFS, and many of those players are now here to stay. 

There is a ton of money to be made in Daily Fantasy Hockey. Yes, the availability of multi-million-dollar prize pools are virtually nonexistent in DFS NHL, but the main thing that is special about it is that most people do not know what they’re doing.

Yes, there is a select group within the fantasy industry who play and for whom I have the utmost respect when it comes to DFS NHL, but the problem comes down to two things:

1) Just because you’re a good DFS player, it does not make you a good DFS NHL player.

2) Being an avid watcher of hockey does not make you a good DFS NHL player. 

Believe me, many big-money DFS players are frequently entering DFS NHL contests. They are some of the biggest names in our industry, and among the very best when it comes to a wide array of sports like NFL, NBA, and MLB. Still, I would say that only a small percentage of these players watch NHL on a regular basis. They know the basics like goals, assists, shots. They know the superstars like Sidney Crosby and Alexander Ovechkin. They know the basic DFS strategies like stacking the big Vegas favorites (an all too common strategy that is far from a guarantee). 

So let me introduce you to our DFS NHL product that you can only get through the Fantasy Alarm DFS Playbook Pro. Again, the DFS hockey community is smaller than all of the other major sports. We launched our NHL product last season and were able to create a buzz with the type of content that we were providing.  

I am proud to say that Brett Talley and I, Kenneth Le, are going to be providing DFS NHL content five-to-six days per week (3+ game slates Monday-through-Saturday) with detailed analysis inside the DFS Playbook (5 games or more) and our very own Optimal Lineups (3 games or more) for both DraftKings and FanDuel. 

Here are three key items which make our DFS Playbook Pro content so special here at Fantasy Alarm: 

1) We watch the games. Yes, at Fantasy Alarm we watch the games. It’s amazing how often that doesn’t happen throughout our industry. If you don’t watch the games, you don’t understand some of the little things that are happening on the ice.  

If Henrik Lundqvist, who many could argue is hockey’s best goaltender, allows three goals on six shots in the first period and gets pulled, you might automatically assume that he was terrible, right? Well, maybe you watch the games and see that Lundqvist’s first two goals were deflections that bounced off of his teammate, Dan Girardi’s body (this is a joke that only hockey fans can understand). Maybe the last one was due to a breakaway allowed after a poor play on a 5-on-3 power-play. That would mean Lundqvist played fine and your assumption that he was just awful would be incorrect.

2)  We track the advanced statistics. To the common DFS NHL player, they’ll have no idea what the terms Corsi, Fenwick, OZFO% and TOI mean. Brett and I both know what we’re doing.  

For instance, we highly value Corsi because it can tell you which players are good at the puck possession game. CF% (Corsi For Percentage) is calculated by taking the total number of shot attempts (Shots + Missed Shots + Blocked Shots) while a player is on the ice and dividing it by the total number shot attempts as well as the total number of shot attempts by the opposition. 

This is important because the more you possess the puck, the more likely it is you’re going to score goals; and the less likely you’re going to be allowing goals. The best team CF% last season belonged to the Los Angeles Kings. The worst team CF% last season belonged to the Colorado Avalanche. We will even analyze these stats on a game-by-game basis to look for trends. 

3) We look at line matchups! Again, those who don’t know what they’re doing with DFS hockey just assume you play the best players on any given night or chase a favorable Vegas line. NO. There is so much more to it than that. I can safely tell you that there is no other DFS NHL service provider that looks at line matchups even remotely close to the level that Brett and I look at it.  

Why is it important to look at line matchups? Because it can help expose a “good play” as a play that’s actually bad, or a “bad play” as something that’s actually good. In hockey, the road team must be the first team to decide which line they play after each whistle (unless it’s an icing). Once the road team chooses a group of five players, the home team can decide to put any of their lines on the ice. 

 Let’s say that the Chicago Blackhawks are on the road against the Boston Bruins. Patrice Bergeron centers the #1 line for Boston with Brad Marchand and they ALWAYS matchup against the opposition’s best offensive line. While the Blackhawks may call their Panik-Toews-Hossa line their #1 line, everyone in hockey feels that their #2 line, the Panarin-Anisimov-Kane line is their most dangerous offensive line. Bergeron and Marchand are going to matchup with Patrick Kane and Artemi Panarin the entire game and try to make their lives miserable. On the other hand, Jonathan Toews and Marian Hossa will likely match up with Boston’s #2 line with David Krejci, which is generally a better matchup. I would be more willing to play Toews and Hossa in this game. 

If the tables were turned, and this game were placed in Chicago, there’s a good chance Toews and Hossa are matching up with Boston’s #1 line. Kane and Panarin’s inflated home stats are no coincidence. They almost never faced their opposition’s #1 line at home, and from time to time, they would even be matched up against a #3 or #4 line. The Hawks were very aggressive with the way they rolled their offensive duo, to the point where they took shifts in the defensive zone less than 20 percent of the time.  

How do Brett and I know which lines are matching up with each other? Well, there is definitely a lot of high level NHL data out there from a variety of resources like hockeyanalysis.com, puckalytics.com, and xtrahockeystats.com. They aren’t just there for everyone to just plug in though. It requires a lot of meticulous analysis that we both feel is extremely important in our day-to-day analysis.  

DFS Playbook Pro subscribers will get to take advantage of all of our in-depth analysis for a low, low price (probably too low to be honest), and still be able to get ALL of the amazing DFS content from other sports like NFL, NBA, PGA, and NASCAR. 

You can always follow us on Twitter: Brett -- @TheRealTAL; Kenneth -- @kle18. 

Here’s to a fun and profitable 2016-17 DFS NHL season!