NHL Main Slate Rundown
Stack the Goals, Not the Names
Tuesday's 12-game slate · DraftKings Classic · locks 7:00 ET
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Top stack
Utah
most implied goals tonight
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Goalie
Dostal
top projection, low owned
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Winners' ownership
~53%
total, on slates this size
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It is a massive night of hockey. Sixteen games are on the schedule, and twelve of them make up the DraftKings Classic main slate that locks at 7:00 ET. A slate this big spreads ownership thin and rewards a different kind of lineup than the small slates we have written about so far, so before picking players we went back and studied what actually wins the tournaments we play. Then we used it to find the stacks the field is missing tonight.
What wins on a slate this big
We went back through the winning lineups and the top 1% of lineups from DraftKings NHL tournaments that look like the ones we play: $3 to $25 entry, a few thousand to tens of thousands of entries, on slates of 11 or 12 games. The top 1% looked almost exactly like the winners.
| Stack shape | 4-3-1 40% · 3-3-1-1 18% · 5-2-1 11%. 59% used exactly three teams for their skaters. |
| Main stack | Four skaters from one team in 48%, three in 32%, five in 14%. |
| Which team | 43% of winners built their main stack around a team outside the eight most popular. Only 24% used one of the three most popular. |
| Ownership | Median total ownership about 53%, middle half 37% to 70%. That is lower than the average lineup in the field. |
| Low-owned plays | The typical winner had 5 players under 5% owned. 73% had nobody at 20% or higher, and the most popular player in a winning lineup was usually around 14%. |
| Goalie | Only 21% took their goalie from the main stack's team, and the winning goalie was usually around 4% owned. |
| Defense and salary | Two defensemen in 95%. Spend $49,800 to $50,000. |
| Why this matters. The best possible lineup on a big slate is almost never a stack. It is a scattered mix of one-off big games that nobody can predict. Winners get to the top a different way: they stack a team that erupts. So pick the right stack first and the rest of the lineup second. |
The slate
Implied goals split each game total by the market's win odds. Times are Eastern.
| Game | Time | Total | Implied goals |
| SEA @ PHI | 7:00 | 6 | SEA 2.95 · PHI 3.05 |
| TBL @ NYR | 7:15 | 6 | TBL 3.30 · NYR 2.70 |
| STL @ OTT | 7:30 | 5.5 | STL 2.74 · OTT 2.76 |
| VAN @ NYI | 7:45 | 6 | VAN 2.52 · NYI 3.48 |
| PIT @ CHI | 8:00 | 6.5 | PIT 3.55 · CHI 2.95 |
| MIN @ WPG | 8:15 | 6 | MIN 2.99 · WPG 3.01 |
| COL @ DAL | 8:30 | 6 | COL 2.94 · DAL 3.06 |
| VGK @ NSH | 8:45 | 6 | VGK 3.12 · NSH 2.88 |
| TOR @ UTA | 9:00 | 6.5 | TOR 2.94 · UTA 3.56 |
| CGY @ ANA | 9:45 | 6 | CGY 2.65 · ANA 3.35 |
| EDM @ LAK | 10:30 | 6 | EDM 3.16 · LAK 2.84 |
| BOS @ SJS | 11:00 | 6 | BOS 3.10 · SJS 2.90 |
The four teams with the most implied goals tonight are Utah, Pittsburgh, the Islanders and Anaheim, and all four sit 11th or lower in projected team ownership. The field is heaviest on the Rangers, Colorado and San Jose, and none of them are projected for more than three goals. That is exactly the gap the winners above took advantage of.
What changed
- Cale Makar is out for the birth of his first child. Devon Toews runs Colorado's top power play instead.
- Connor Bedard is back for Chicago after missing the start of the year, at center on the top line and top power-play unit.
- Dustin Wolf looks like Calgary's goalie, who has an .816 save percentage and no wins this year. Good news for Dostal and Anaheim.
- Anaheim is without Cutter Gauthier, and 2025 top-ten pick Roger McQueen plays his first NHL game. Charlie McAvoy returns from suspension for Boston.
- Back-to-backs for Ottawa, Vegas and Minnesota, who all played Monday.
- Goalies not confirmed yet for Seattle, Ottawa, Edmonton, Los Angeles, Boston and San Jose. Check before lock.
Goalies
Our goalie
| G ANA Lukas Dostal · $8,300 · 14.8 · 3% | The best goalie projection on the slate at 3% owned. Anaheim is a clear favorite at home, and Calgary has not won a game yet. |
Also in play
| G NYI Ilya Sorokin · $8,500 · 11.8 · 7% | The biggest favorite on the board, against a Vancouver team giving up five goals a night. Costs more, but the win bonus is likely. |
| G UTA Karel Vejmelka · $7,500 · 12.5 · 2% | A cheap goalie on a strong favorite. Skip him if Utah is your main stack, since winners rarely pair the goalie with the stack. |
Popular
| G DAL Jake Oettinger · $7,600 · 13.7 · 10% | The most popular goalie tonight. Dallas has allowed fewer than two goals a game, but the winning goalie is usually far less owned than this. |
Stacks we like
Power-play stacks group skaters who play together when their team is up a man.
1. Utah power play Clayton Keller, Mikhail Sergachev, Dylan Guenther, Nick Schmaltz · $25,300 · 61.5 proj · 20% combined ownership Our top stack. The most implied goals on the slate, against a Toronto team missing its top defensive defenseman, and the field has Utah 11th in team ownership. Guenther and Keller are the two best forward projections on the board under $7,200. |
2. Islanders power play Bo Horvat, Matthew Schaefer, Brayden Schenn, Kyle Palmieri · $21,800 · 46.8 proj · 20% combined ownership The biggest favorite on the slate faces a Vancouver team that has been giving up goals and power plays all season. The Islanders are 16th in projected team ownership. |
3. Penguins power play Sidney Crosby, Evgeni Malkin, Erik Karlsson, Rickard Rakell · $23,400 · 39.6 proj · 10% combined ownership Our leverage stack. Pittsburgh is tied for second in implied goals, but only six teams are less owned. Crosby, Malkin and Karlsson together cost less than one Edmonton star. |
One-offs
| C CHI Connor Bedard · $7,400 · 11.0 · 1% | Returning tonight on Chicago's top line and top power-play unit, at about 1% owned. A great one-off for a team that is not your main stack. |
| W ANA Frank Vatrano · $2,600 · 11.8 · 1% | A $2,600 winger on Anaheim's second power play. Pairs naturally with Dostal. |
| W NYI Brayden Schenn · $3,600 · 10.1 · 3% | The cheapest way into the Islanders' top power-play unit. |
Fades
| C NYR Mika Zibanejad · $7,000 · 7.7 · 10% | The Rangers are the most popular team in the field, against Vasilevskiy, and no team in the field's top eight has a lower implied total. |
| C SJS Macklin Celebrini · $8,500 · 14.1 · 12% | The most popular skater on the slate. San Jose has fewer implied goals than all four of our stacks. |
| C COL Nathan MacKinnon · $9,200 · 18.6 · 10% | Still the best player in the game, but Makar is out and Dallas has allowed fewer than two goals a game. At $9,200 and one of the most popular skaters, we will be under the field. |
See the winners for yourself. Perfect Lineups, part of Seeking Optimal Pro, shows the winning lineup and the best possible lineup for every DraftKings contest.
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GPP Core
Lukas Dostal, Dylan Guenther, Clayton Keller and Bo Horvat: the top goalie projection, Utah's two best power-play forwards, and the Islanders' top center. $29,100 for the four.
Finish it yourself:
- Build a 4-3-1: two more Utah skaters (Schmaltz or Sergachev) and two more Islanders (Schenn and a cheap winger).
- Your one-off can be a Duck. Dostal is your goalie, so a skater on his team is fine.
- Keep it to two defensemen and get under 5% ownership in four or five spots.
- No Calgary skaters, since they face Dostal. Spend close to the full $50,000.
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Build yours in the optimizer
Open the NHL optimizer, lock your core, and set Max Player vs Goalie to 0 so no skater faces your goalie. The Line column shows each skater's line and power-play unit, and goalies are marked Confirmed or Probable as teams announce.
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Good luck tonight. Reply to this email with questions, or come talk lineups in the Discord.
Salaries are DraftKings Classic prices. Projections and ownership are Seeking Optimal's, as shown in the optimizer Tuesday afternoon. Implied goals come from sportsbook totals and moneylines. Winning-lineup findings come from past DraftKings NHL tournaments. Check starting goalies before lock. Play responsibly.
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