Sometimes we have the nastiest habit of not explaining ourselves when it comes to giving advice. This is human nature, really. The podcast attached below is our Fantasy Hockey X podcast done every Tuesday night with Michael Clifford, Chris Pacheco, and myself. Though we try to explain everything thoroughly, there are always terms that fall through the cracks.

This is part number one of our two part series. We will take a crack at a few terms then finish with several others in the vernacular of a DFS hockey player. Some you may be kind of familiar already and some will be new to you. Let's start with some simple ones. Yes these articles will be brief but hopefully we can inform a little as we head into the stretch run for daily fantasy hockey.
DFS Terminology
Stacking -- Hey this is the easiest one out there. You will hear this so many times that your head will spin. Stacking just involves taking a series of players (often on the same line) and drafting them in your lineup. Taking the Rick Nash line on a Thursday night and stacking them would be a good idea. There are a variety of ways to use stacking also.

There is cross the line stacking where you take two or three players strung together from different lines and there is also defensive stacking where you take a pairing and go with it. Say I wanted to take Roman Josi and Shea Weber. That would be a textbook duo defensive stack.

Lastly there is bulk stacking where a player may take as many as four to six players from one team on their roster. It is rare to see but every so often, I have seen a top six completely rostered. The more common bulk stack is four or five players and a bit more scattered in nature.

Crashing -- This is the worst nightmare for DFS players. Typically in expected high event games, sometimes the game just gets away from itself in the sense that the goals and chances do not quite materialize the way they should. Most times these games actually have quite a few shots too. For example, last night's Anaheim-Ottawa game featured 60+ combined shots and only three goals (one an empty netter). Maybe the over would not have hit but Anaheim should have scored at least two or three goals but were thoroughly outworked instead.

That is what happens in these crash games. Either one team is outworked or both teams play is below par. In this case the Senators just outworked Anaheim at every turn. Nothing is worse when you stack in these types of games and just watch the big money players go up in smoke. It occurs to all of us -- no matter the skill level.

Strays -- These are the guys that a player will often trot out there for no other reason that is they are too good to pass up. Now the salary of said forward or defenseman does not matter. This simple comes down to a guy that you just have to play. GPP's are the common destination where strays are prevalent but they can be seen in some cash games. They are obvious to spot but can sometimes produce big results. Michael Cammalleri was an example of this on Monday night.

Typically those players can be noticed by unusual spikes in ownership or price activity. However, other times this is just spotted by luck. Either way, strays are always a moderate to high risk gamble but when they hit, it is a heck of a feeling.

Good luck ladies and gentlemen and look out for more of our DFS hockey columns coming very soon....