In any daily fantasy lineup, spending up in any daily fantasy lineup is how to get the superstars and the highest upside players in your lineup.

In NHL DFS, it’s different from paying up in sports like NBA or NFL. Someone can be one of the highest salaried players at his position and put up a total dud of a performance, and paying that much for him would be a huge mistake. Let’s make sure we are paying up in the right spots when building our lineups tonight.

Friday night brings two games on the NHL slate. Let's find a few studs.

Nazem Kadri, Center, Colorado Avalanche

FanDuel Salary: $6,000

Nazem Kadri is producing like Nathan MacKinnon. The Colorado center is executing at a stud level. Kadri anchors the top forward line and top power-play unit for the Avalanche.

Our model projects Colorado to score just 2.97 goals, but that seems a little low given Philipp Grubauer's penchant for allowing three-plus goals, which is something he's done in four straight games.

Stacking players on both sides of this game is viable. But sticking with the Avs, Samuel Girard and Erik Johnson are fun low-salary pieces that make sense in a stack.

Kyle Connor, Wing, Winnipeg Jets

FanDuel Salary: $9,000

The Winnipeg Jets' forward just loves to fire pucks on the net, similar to Alex Ovechkin. Kyle Connor does not get tired, and he does not get weak. He put nine shots on goal against Edmonton Thursday night. That included a whopping seven scoring chances.

He shoots from everywhere and is on a line that can draw power plays. The Vancouver Canucks are the worst penalty kill in the league at 60.3%. Their net penalty kill percentage is less than 63%, as well.

Again, Connor just cannot help himself when it comes to shots on goal, which helps him amass FanDuel points. The left-winger has 20 or more FanDuel points in four straight games.

It may be prudent to try Josh Morrissey or even Neal Pionk with Connor on Friday night against Vancouver.

Cale Makar, Defenseman, Colorado Avalanche

FanDuel Salary: $6,700

This is another very small slate, and Cale Makar is again our top-projected defenseman.

Makar is hot right now with nine real-world points in his last seven games. He played 24-plus minutes against Vancouver and now gets a Seattle Kraken team that will have Grubauer in goal. Grubauer has an expected goals-saved above average of -11.2 goals.

With so few actual studs on the docket, Makar is well worth a look.

Chris Wassel is not a FanDuel employee. In addition to providing DFS gameplay advice, Chris Wassel also participates in DFS contests on FanDuel using his personal account, username chriswassel. While the strategies and player selections recommended in his articles are his/her personal views, he/she may deploy different strategies and player selections when entering contests with his/her personal account. The views expressed in his/her articles are the author’s alone and do not necessarily reflect the views of FanDuel.