NHL DFS Picks for January 5, 2026: Top Stacks, Best Value Plays & Goalie Targets

Happy New Year, everyone!

It is Monday, January 5th, 2026. Five-game slate on tap tonight.

Top Stack of the Day

Detroit Power Play 1 (JVR, Seider, Larkin, DeBrincat, Raymond)

There are only five games tonight, and three have a 5.5 total, so goals should be at a premium tonight. The only place I expect to see a shootout tonight is at 1000 Palladium Dr. in Ottawa at the Canadian Tire Centre, where Ottawa hosts Detroit. Looking at advanced stats this year, with a minimum of one game played, Leevi Merilainen ranks 83rd out of 85 qualified goalies in Goals Saved Above Expected at -9.9. To say the goaltending in Ottawa has been woeful is an understatement. Marco Kasper also sees the bump to the top-line tonight as the Red Wings shuffle them, so there are several ways to play this. Either way, I want some DET exposure in my lineups.

Top Value Stack of the Day

Calgary 3 (Coleman, Backlund, Coronato)

In all honesty, this is also DET with Kasper coming in at $2,500 and James van Riemsdyk at $2,800, but don’t sleep on Calgary tonight. CGY3 specifically is one of my favorite lines to target on large slates, but on short slates, they are a cheat code. They are consistently priced like a normal third line, but a look under the hood shows that is not the case in reality. Backlund himself averages about 17 TOI per game, and Coronato gets PP1 time. As an added bonus, at the time of writing Daccord is unconfirmed for SEA, and if Grubauer gets the start, this spot gets even better.

TOP C Value

Matty Beniers, Seattle Kraken ($4.8k DK)

I seem to be a broken record today as my top values at C are Morgan Frost and Mikael Backlund, but we just discussed CGY as the top value stack. In the same game, fresh off a shootout winner, let’s talk about Beniers. Seattle has been terrible this year, but Beniers specifically has really come on lately with a multi-point performance on New Year’s Day and some better shot volume the last two weeks with special teams time as well.

Top W Value

Daniil But, Utah Mammoth ($2.5k DK)

It’s officially Groundhog Day at NHL DFS picks because the best picks here are all guys we have already discussed, JVR, Kasper, Farabee, Coleman…DET and CGY. However, there is one glaring misprice today you can take advantage of if you need the salary relief, Daniil But. He’s been in the NHL for over a month now, on Utah’s third line with PP2 ice time, and he’s still at the dead minimum salary on DraftKings. I like this sort of play more on large slates, and probably won’t need this value tonight, but if DK keeps pricing him at the dead minimum, he is always worth the look.

Top D Value

Jamie Oleksiak, Seattle Kraken ($2.7k DK)

I haven’t won any NHL tournaments over the last couple of weeks, but it hasn’t been Jamie Oleksiak’s fault, who I’ve been plugging in nearly every day. This guy is a blocked shots machine, and if you get any offense out of him at all, he has tournament-winning upside. How he continues to be priced so low is beyond me, but hey, I don’t set the prices around here, I just control the controllables and deal with what I’m given.

Top G Value

Filip Gustavsson, Minnesota Wild ($7.6k DK)

I don’t understand how DraftKings has been pricing goalies lately. Traditionally, in a matchup such as MIN @ LAK, if one team was the -120 favorite and the other team was the +100 underdog, you would see the favorite priced around 7800 and the underdog around 7600. Well, for a while now, they seem to do the opposite, automatically making the home goalie the expensive one. These prices should be flipped, and I will take the free $200 to spend elsewhere in my lineup as a thank you.