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 spending 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 spending salary in the right spots when building our lineups tonight.

Thursday night features seven games in all. It is time to look at a few studs.

Sebastian Aho, Center, Carolina Hurricanes

FanDuel Salary: $9,700

Going up against one of the league's worst teams in the Montreal Canadiens should be a help for Sebastian Aho.

Aho was in great form heading into the unexpectedly long "Christmas Break." The center had five goals and six assists in a five-game span. In four of those contests, the pivot had at least four shots and more than four scoring chances. Montreal's defense allows the second-most FanDuel points to centers.

Aho has three blocked shots in his last two games, which only boosts his DFS floor that much more heading into Thursday night.

You could also roster Jesperi Kotkaniemi in the form of a mini-stack to save some salary.

Timo Meier, Wing, San Jose Sharks

FanDuel Salary: $10,000

Timo Meier has been called the mini Alex Ovechkin on occasion.

All the San Jose Sharks' winger does is fire shots on the net. He had three more shots on goal in Tuesday night's wild 8-7 win over the Arizona Coyotes. Meier had a goal and assist in that game to give him 13 goals and 18 assists in 26 games. The left-winger averages more than four shots a game and has totaled 114 shots on the season.

Meier faces a Philadelphia Flyers team that is allowing 35 shots a game on the road and just played in Seattle on Wednesday night. There could be plenty of shots and scoring chances for Meier along with a high potential for DFS success.

Drew Doughty, Defenseman, Los Angeles Kings

FanDuel Salary: $7,100

The Los Angeles Kings' defenseman had a bit of a scare in the loss to the Vegas Golden Knights on Tuesday, but he is good to go against the Vancouver Canucks.

Drew Doughty has three goals and 11 assists in just 12 games this season. He also has five double-digit nights of double-digit FanDuel points across his last six games. Doughty is even averaging two blocked shots a game in that span to go along with 15 total shots on goal.

He is facing a Vancouver team on no rest that may be ripe for a bad performance. Doughty and Los Angeles want to rebound after a disaster against Vegas. The Canucks may be a perfect panacea.

Some will look to Victor Hedman tonight -- and rightfully so -- but Doughty is an excellent play, too.

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.