MichaelRyder

Fantasy Impact: The New Jersey Devils have signed winger Michael Ryder to a two-year deal worth $7 million.

The Devils get: a five-time 25-goal scorer (and last season pro-rates to a sixth time). Other than a couple of off-years with Boston, Ryder has been a consistent 55- to 60-point producer. He does tend to wear out his welcome with a team after two years (in terms of production slowdown and coach frustration). So actually, this contract really fits.

Fantasy Players Impacted: Ryder joins a team in desperate need of a second-line scorer on the wing. Talk about custom-made! There is no reason why Ryder can’t get 30 goals and 60 points this season.

Without this move, maybe Dainius Zubrus gets some time on a scoring line. Without this move, maybe Mattias Tedenby gets another look. Neither will happen now, but we expected as much. We knew the Devils would sign a winger of this mold and sure enough they have done so.

Potential Line Combos (I’ll take another stab at this, much as I did in the Ryane Clowe breakdown):

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Patrik Elias – Travis Zajac – Ilya Kovalchuk

Ryane Clowe – Adam Henrique – Michael Ryder

Mattias Tedenby – Andrei Loktionov – Steve Bernier

Ryan Carter – Stephen Gionta – Dainius Zubrus

Stefan Matteau – Jacob Josefson – Krys Barch

Fantasy Players this helps, in order:

1. Ryder

2. Adam Henrique (or Travis Zajac, whoever misses out on playing with Kovalchuk

Fantasy Players this hurts, in order:

1. Tedenby