Tonight's Optimal Lineups will be posted by 4:00 PM ET. There is a good chance of it being posted way before 4:00 PM, so stay tuned. Plus, if you haven't done so already, be sure to check out my articles:
It's the opening night of hockey and we're looking to start it off with a BANG.
Once again, we'll have DraftKings and FanDuel cash lineups going. Depending on how night one goes, we'll either stick with one lineup, or have two lineups going on each site (last year, it was common to see Fantasy Alarm Nation control 40 percent of cash game entries in certain contests). Please be sure to read my DFS Contest Selection article. I highly suggest for anyone using OL's to insert a FantasyAlarm logo as your profile picture on DraftKings and FanDuel. This isn't just a promotion type of deal, I suggest it because even though I suggest not playing people heads up, you guys will probably still do it, and I wouldn't want you to throw money away by facing someone who is also playing an OL.
As for tonight, again, I highly suggest to take it easy with your entries. No current data is being used to analyze the players, so I am forced to use my immense hockey knowledge combined with 2015-16 data to get a feel of these matchups. Not bad, but there's only four games in play, which usually makes it more of a GPP night.
This can still work though. The two games that I have pegged as the high scoring games are Toronto/Ottawa and Calgary/Vancouver. After going through some details, I just feel that those two games really stand out from a DFS perspective, so I will be looking to get exposure to them in my lineups. Even though I do not have them in my lineups, I do like the Blues as well, but it is definitely going to be difficult to figure out who is going to be doing the damage for them. Tarasenko and Shattenkirk are good options, but they are expensive.
For cash games, I do not mind if you split up lines (e.g. using Gaudreau from CGY1 and Bennett from CGY2). For GPPs, you better stick with stacking, and you can see my preferred stacks for today by click on this Playbook link.
Lineups are subject to change, so be sure to be back by roster lock to see if any changes are made. Good luck!