Welcome back, folks! Tonight is Opening Night for the 2016-17 National Hockey League season! 

Usually on Wednesdays, with no more than four games in play, either Brett and I would solely be putting out Optimal Lineups rather than the full Playbook/Optimal Lineup combo. As a heads up for Fantasy Alarm’s DFS NHL coverage for the 2016-17, you should all be aware that we will continue to have Playbooks Monday-through-Saturday as long as there are at least five games going on. Optimal Lineups will also be Monday-through-Saturday, but as long as there are at least three games going on. 

If you haven’t already done so, anyone looking to play DFS NHL this season should take a look at my Contest Selection article I break down some of my most important tips for playing DFS hockey, and my How To Win at DFS Hockey article. DFS NHL is going to be a little different than some of the bigger sports. Yeah, it’s bigger than DFS MMA or DFS League of Legends, but it’s considerably smaller than the big three of NFL, MLB, and NBA. In my opinion, contest selection becomes much more important for the less popular sports. 

With a new season starting, it’s important to get a good grasp of the many new faces that will be getting a good chunk of top-six ice time (in layman’s terms, players who will be playing on their respective team’s top two lines). If you’re looking for the very best and most up-to-date lines, I highly suggest you follow beat writers throughout the NHL. The moment new lines are formed, they will post them for the viewing public to see on their blog or Twitter feeds. I have established a list of 45 NHL Beat Writers on my Twitter account, which you guys can have access to by going to https://twitter.com/kle18/lists/nhl-beat-writers.

It’s definitely going to be a challenge for the first week of the season because there’s just so many question marks to think about, but as long as you’re aware of who is playing with who, and the players who will be getting a good amount of power-play time, you’ll have an edge on the average player.

As always, if you have any questions at all, please feel free to reach me on Twitter @kle18. Let’s get this rolling!

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