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Every
profitable DFS player will tell you that stacks are important, and the right
one can either make or break your night.
Everyone has their own system for how they pick their stacks and what
they look for, as you can imagine each sport requires a different strategy. For
those that are new let me just start by saying what a stack is and why it is important.
A stack is a combination of players that have been selected to work together in
tandem to maximize points. A simple example of this is picking Julien Edelman
when we pick Tom Brady…. before 2020 of course lol. We pick them together
because he is one of Tom’s top targets which means that there is a good chance
Tom will look to him. Every time that this sequence is completed you earn
double points because you get points for the production of both players. This immediately
propels you past a player that only has one of the two in this pair, and as we
all know one point can make all the difference. This is just one type of stack;
this example is not made to say just randomly pick two teammates and you will win.
You must also look at other contributing factors, like what if the patriots go
in with a run strategy the above-mentioned stack could fail to produce. Now
that I have made enough football analogies here is how I pick my hockey stacks;
I have to say this is not the only way this is just a glimpse at my way.
If you have not already, I would
recommend reading the blog post on how I pick goalies because these processes
play off each other. As with football, there is a version of stacks that would
have us put teammates together, these are the first stacks I look at. From my
goalie selection process, I have already narrowed down the 2-3 teams that I
believe are going to have strong performances. When we know what goalies are in
a bad matchup, we can then find the shooters that we believe will have a strong
performance. To further confirm this it is important to look at the defense of
the opposing team, just because the goalie is struggling it does not mean his
team will not pick him up. I will go further into this stat in a later post,
as it requires its own explanation. With that in mind do not know matter what
the defense matchup is I do not recommend a stack against your goalie.
After I
have identified the team in the best position, I take the top scorers from
those teams and look at what line they are on. For stacking I focus on the
players in the top 2 lines and see what power-play line they are on. More often
than not there will be at least one person that is also on both of these lines.
The reason this is huge is that the powerplay by nature should be the
player's best chance to score, due to the man advantage. If you have a scorer on
the ice you get the points for the goal and you also have the chance to get
assist points if you have the passer.
In hockey, you are awarded an assist if you
either pass to the scorer or if you pass to the person that passed to the
scorer. With only 6 people on the ice that could earn an assist and 3 people can
get an assist having two of the people gives you a high percentage to earn
points. To take it one step further the goalie does not come down the ice with
the skaters, so it really lowers it to 5 people. So you have a 40% chance to
have a player that scores points in DFS when you have a goal-scoring lineup.
This is how I start my stacking
and team selection process once I figure out my stacks, I use my stat page to
weed out other top players. Once I identify who I believe will have a good game
I bring them in. As you do this keep in mind that various contests have rules of
how many people from the same team you can use. This keeps people from grabbing
everyone on a team that is projected to have a strong showing. Be sure to check
out the site, and when the season starts get your fact sheet until then follow
us on twitter for more updates.
@fire_goon
@SportsWiseGuy1
