You’re most likely familiar with fantasy hockey – the regular fantasy hockey that’s been around for years. If not I’ll quickly explain it: there are two variations. In the first one, you will pick a team for the whole season(or just for the playoffs) picking any NHL players you want. So you could pick all Penguins players for example, or 1 player from each team. There are usually no restrictions.

The other form involves a draft. In this one, only one person in the league can have a player. So Sidney Crosby will be available only to one player for example. Everyone enters, there’s a random order and then people take turns making picks.

So that’s fantasy hockey in a nutshell – but let’s cover daily fantasy hockey.

Daily fantasy hockey or NHL is exactly how it sounds: it’s a fantasy tournament which starts and ends on the same day.

Two of the most common and popular websites for Fantasy Hockey are DraftKings and
FanDuel.

We will use FanDuel as an example for how it works.

So you go there, and sign up. There are a list of tournaments that you can participate in. For example, one tournament would be the daily $2,000 guaranteed tournament. This tournament has a guaranteed prize pool of $2,000 and costs just $2 to enter.

When you join it, you have to pick NHL players. You can pick ANYONE – it doesn’t matter if Sidney Crosby is picked by anyone else – you can still take him.

You get to pick 2 left wingers, 2 right wingers, 2 centers, 2 defenseman and a goalie.

The ONLY restriction is the salary cap. You are given a salary cap of $55,000. Each player is given a salary based on their general skill level, as well as the previous games points. So for example Tukka Rask will be worth $10,3000, Henrik Zetterbergs salary is $8,700. Defenders are usually cheaper – the most expensive is usually Chara at around $6,000 and you can get players like Drew Doughty for $5,000.

So you pick your players staying within the salary cap – and the one other restriction of 4 players maximum from a team.

Then how they perform that night determines whether you win money or not.

To earn fantasy points, it’s split by goalies and everyone else.

Goalie Points:
Win = 3 points.
Shutout = 2 points.
Saves = 0.2 points.
Goal conceded = -1 point.

Forwards/Defensemen:
Goal: 3 points.
Assists: 2 points.
Plus-Minus = 1 point.
Penalty Minutes = 0.25pts.
Power Play Goals = 0.5pts.
Power Play Assists = 0.5pts.
Shots on goal = 0.4 points.

For this particular $2,000 guaranteed tournament – 120 places are paid. As I said, $2 entry. So your fantasy team goes against everyone else – it’s not head to head. Person with most points wins. If you finish 1st you get $300. 5th-6th gets $50. 14th-18th gets $20 all the way down to 81st-120th who get $6.

Once the night is done and the games are over everyone is paid, and then we move onto the next day. No need to keep the same players or anything like that.

So that’s what daily fantasy NHL is. I’d recommend signing up at both DraftKings and
FanDuel. If I had a preference I would choose FanDuel, but it’s good to sign up at both and pick and choose the best tournaments to enter.

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