The Calgary Flames have traded a third-round draft pick to the Chicago Blackhawks for defenseman Erik Gustafsson. They also traded a conditional fourth-round pick to Los Angeles for rearguard Derek Forbort.

The Flames get: An enigma in Gustafsson. There is no other way to describe it. Gustafsson is either one of the best power-play quarterbacks in the entire league, or he’s an overrated PP specialist. And frankly, it could go either way here. With some good puck luck and the right fit, he is indeed a top PP QB. With some bad puck luck and a poor fit, he could be fighting for a contract in the summer. Pretty extreme, but it is what it is. Gustafsson, in what was his first full NHL season, scored 17 goals and had 60 points – with the bulk of those happening in the final 60 games last year. He was sixth in scoring among all defensemen last year and third in goals scored. But this year he has just 26 points (a 36-point pace), which is a significant dropoff.

In Forbort the team gets a huge defenseman who hasn’t lived up to the hype of his 15th overall selection (2010). He has missed much of this season due to a back injury and some healthy scratches.

Fantasy Players Impacted: This is a fresh start for Gustafsson. He had plenty of chances this year with Chicago, but it wasn’t working for him. My theory is that Gustafsson was very effective as part of a defense pairing on the power play. But when the team went with four forwards and one defenseman, he was often left off the score sheet as the talented forwards passed to each other. His touch of the puck would often be the “third assist”. The Flames currently have Travis Hamonic sidelined until April, and Mark Giordano likely out for another week or so. The bad news – Coach Geoff Ward has been favoring a four-forward PP unit. Perhaps those four forwards use their defenseman more than a Patrick Kane-led Chicago PP group did. How quickly Gustafsson adapts to the new system will determine whether or not he elbows Giordano off the power play when the captain returns. Giordano had 74 points last season but is on pace for half that this year. Both Giordano and Gustafsson are left-handed shots. This knocks Rasmus Andersson off the power play while Giordano is hurt, but he wasn’t doing much with the PP ice time anyway. Forbort offers no fantasy value.

All that power play time has opened up in Chicago and the team is going to turn to rookie Adam Boqvist, who has just two points on the power play all year in over 70 minutes…and veteran Duncan Keith who has just six PPPts in over 106 minutes. Neither player offers a huge amount of promise in the short term, even with the added PP time.

Fantasy Players this helps, in order:

• Gustafsson – Hey, a fresh start is a fresh start, even if it is not very promising.
• Boqvist
• Keith

Fantasy Players this hurts, in order:

• Giordano
• Andersson

The forum discussion on this deal can be found here.