The Vancouver Canucks have acquired Brandon Sutter and a third-round pick in 2016 from the Pittsburgh Penguins in exchange for Nick Bonino, Adam Clendening, and a second-round pick.

By Ian Gooding – Also, the Penguins sign Eric Fehr to a three-year contract worth $6 million.

The Penguins get:

Nick Bonino, a playmaking center who scored 15 goals and 24 assists in 75 games with the Canucks, which turned out to be his only season with the Canucks after being acquired in the Ryan Kesler trade. Bonino scored a career-high 22 goals and 27 assists the season before with the Anaheim Ducks.

Adam Clendening, a young defenseman with some offensive upside who scored a goal and three assists in 21 NHL games while spending the majority of the 2014-15 season in the AHL. Clendening was acquired by the Canucks from the Blackhawks last season for defensive prospect Gustav Forsling.

Eric Fehr, a power forward who scored 19 goals and 14 assists in 75 games with the Washington Capitals. Fehr could miss the start of the 2015-16 season after undergoing elbow surgery in June.

The Canucks get:

Brandon Sutter, a center who is less popular with the analytics crowd than he is with old-school hockey types because of his relatively poor puck possession numbers. He scored 21 goals and 12 assists in 80 games with the Penguins in 2014-15.

Fantasy Players Impacted:

Bonino and Fehr could form a new Penguins’ third line, possibly with Pascal Dupuis as the third member. This is a strong line as far as third lines go, but it won’t help any of these players if they don’t receive many minutes with Sidney Crosby, Evgeni Malkin, or Phil Kessel. Bonino was a consistent second-line center in Vancouver, but he may only see the Penguins’ second line as an injury replacement. Worse yet, Pens GM Jim Rutherford has stated that he plans to use both players at center, which could diminish their fantasy value even further (great depth at center, though).

Clendening was slotted in to be no higher than a third-pairing defenseman in Vancouver, and he should be projected for a similar bubble player role for the Penguins. His move to Pittsburgh should solidify a full-time roster spot for Frank Corrado, who was likely to battle Clendening to be the sixth defenseman on a nightly basis in Van City.

The Canucks clearly paid a premium for Sutter here, so he could see an increase in minutes in being upgraded to a second-line center. Sutter could see more of the defensive zone starts, meaning that fellow second/third line center Bo Horvat could see more scoring chances on offensive-zone starts. Expect Sutter to be used when the Canucks need a key faceoff or an important penalty kill, as his strongest asset seems to be his checking ability.

Fantasy Players this helps, in order:

Sutter

Horvat

Corrado

Fantasy Players this hurts, in order:

Bonino

Dupuis

Fehr

Fantasy owners are discussing this signing now – give your take right here