Fantasy impact: The Carolina Hurricanes sign left wing Viktor Stalberg to a one-year contract worth $1.5 million.

Viktor Stalberg 1 yr /$ 1.5M with Carolina Hurricanes.

— Aaron Ward (@NHL_AaronWard) July 1, 2016

The Hurricanes get: A forward that was on another one-year contract with the Rangers in 2015-16, actually receiving a raise of $400,000 on his newly signed contract. The Predators bought out his four-year, $12 million contract a year ago after they discovered that he didn’t fit the bill as a scorer. Think of Stalberg as a secondary scorer, not the 40-point scorer that he was in 2011-12 as a member of the Blackhawks. The 6’3”, 209 lb. winger can still provide a third-line presence for the Hurricanes, who needed to add some size this offseason. The Hurricanes were a bottom-5 team in hits, and Stalberg’s 144 hits would have placed him second on the ‘Canes in hits in 2015-16.

Fantasy players impacted: Stalberg would battle for minutes with Bryan Bickell, a similar player who was also acquired this offseason, assuming Bickell’s $4 million cap hit is not bought out before the season. Stalberg likely won’t crack the top 6, which should include (in no particular order) Jordan Staal, Jeff Skinner, Elias Lindholm, Victor Rask, as well as newly acquired Teuvo Teravainen and Lee Stempniak. So don’t expect much of an increase on the 12 minutes that he averaged with the Rangers, unless there are multiple injuries or a youngster like Lindholm or Teravainen fails to come through. Overall, Stalberg should only be considered a fantasy option in extremely deep leagues or leagues that count hits.

Fantasy players this helps:

No one

Fantasy players this hurts:

Bickell (game logs, stats, line combos here)