Fantasy Impact: The Capitals acquire Daniel Winnik and late pick from Leafs for Brooks Laich, Connor Carrick and a second round pick.

The Capitals get: A cheap depth winger who has a bit of scoring punch built mostly off of speed. They also get a fifth round pick. Most importantly, they dump Laich’s contract worth $4.5 million for this season and next.

The Leafs get: A 2016 second round pick likely to be in the late 50’s. They also get an expensive depth forward in Laich as well as a decent prospect in Carrick.

Fantasy Players Impacted: Laich had been skating on the fourth line for Washington. Paying $4.5 million is far too much for that kind of talent. Winnik offers as much, if not more value in that spot given his speed. He could even fill in on a scoring line if required and don’t be shocked if he has an impact come playoff time. The real fantasy impact is going to come in the form of the rental defenseman the Capitals can now afford to add (at least as far as the cap is concerned) thanks to the space they have cleared out. A slumping Braden Holtby will be thankful for that.

Laich really doesn’t have much fantasy value any longer, even if he sees top six minutes in Toronto, which is unlikely. Poor guy goes from a Cup contender to a lottery team at the worst time.

Carrick may not sniff the NHL this season but will get some valuable experience making a run at the AHL championship for the Leafs’ farm club. With 71 points and PIM in 132 AHL games Carrick has legit multi-category potential for fantasy leagues. Carrick already has 37 games of NHL experience under his belt as well. Read more on Carrick here.

This is a hefty price for the Capitals to pay to dump Laich’s deal. It’s no wonder the Blackhawks have had such difficulty in finding a landing spot for Bryan Bickell’s albatross deal. Doesn’t seem too likely the Leafs would be willing to do another such deal so it becomes less likely that Bickell gets moved.

Players this helps, in order:

Connor Carrick

Daniel Winnik

Braden Holtby

Players this hurts, in order:

Brooks Laich

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Steve Laidlaw is the Managing Editor of DobberHockey. You can follow him @SteveLaidlaw.