Fantasy NHL Trade Impact: Will Grabner Set Fire to the Devils Offense?

Fantasy NHL Trade Impact: Graber heads to Jersey:

Welcome to an action packed NHL Trade Deadline as we should continue to see a flurry of activity leading up to the 3PM EST deadline on Monday, February 26. We have already seen a handful of trades heading into today and we will break down the fantasy hockey impact of each of those deals as they break throughout the day, for Fantasy NHL!

With the Rangers already publicly calling it quits this season, we knew there would be many hot trade rumors come from the Rangers front office. One of the first movements was watching winger Michael Grabner going to the Devils, in exchange for next year’s 2018 second round pick, and Yegor Rykov.

Yegor Rykov is a 20-year-old defenseman currently playing in his native Russia. He’s a solid prospect pick up for the Rangers, and along with a second round pick, the Rangers likely got the better haul in this trade. However, that’ll be dependent on Rykov’s eventual production.

From the Devils’ perspective, though, this trade also makes sense. For a team who’s in the playoff hunt, they lack offensive power outside of star Taylor Hall, a winger on their top line. In fact, the Devils’ top line of Hall, Nico Hischier, and Kyle Palmieri is really where you gave the vast majority of the fantasy NHL value. That may change.

Immediate Fantasy NHL Impact:

The Devils second line is currently comprised of Miles Wood who has 16 goals 11 assists and a negative three +/- line, Pavel Zacha at center who has only six goals and 13 assists with a one +/- line, and Jesper Bratt at right wing with 12 goals 21 assists and a -11 +/-. We expect Michael Grabner to eventually fill in somewhere on their second line.

It’ll take a few games for the Devils to get Grabner used to their play, so he may start out in the third and fourth lines and work his way up. But Michael had an incredible 25 goals for the Rangers and only six assists. Still, his goal production was massive, one of the top goal-scorers in the league.

Also, and this is important, Grabner has a +11 line, meaning his lines have been more productive and given up less goal-scoring than they’ve scored on opponents. For that reason, we think Grabner likely fills in for someone like Wood on the second line. This should maintain Michael’s goal-scoring production, and we may even see him on the ice more with Hall in the Power play.

If it’s possible, try to pick Grabner up off the wire or in a trade. His production will increase for the rest of the season. For DFS, Michael is a great value stack with Taylor Hall, but may still be expensive due to his goal-scoring rate.

Next: FanDuel NHL Picks February 26

Stay tuned for the breakdowns of the rest of the NHL trade deadline deals and for all of your DFS needs!