Fantasy Impact: Oilers Add Andreas Athanasiou
Dobber
2020-02-24
The Edmonton Oilers trade Sam Gagner and two second-round draft picks to the Detroit Red Wings for speedy forward Andreas Athanasiou and prospect Ryan Kuffner.
The Oilers get: One of the fastest players in the league. Athanasiou is enigmatic in that he has first-line talent but we only see it in spurts. Think playing with Connor McDavid can cure that? If the two of them play on a line together, opposition defensemen will be doing their best turnstile impressions.
The Red Wings get: Unfortunately, Sam Gagner will be a placeholder for this season. I think he is deserving of a regular roster spot on the third line and on the power play, but at this point NHL teams have him pretty firmly pigeonholed and seem hell-bent on chasing him back to the minors. But it won’t be this year, as the Wings need him for now.
Fantasy Players Impacted: Athanasiou is having a disappointing season and that’s an understatement. At this point in his career the 25-year-old should be having a breakout season, following up last year’s 30 goals and 54 points. Instead, he’s on a 43-point pace and has an NHL-low minus-45 rating. Suddenly he goes to the team with the great player in the game today – and that team is dying to find a winger for said player? Yes please. The fellas on the TSN panel opined that he would be a great fit on the second line with Ryan Nugent-Hopkins and Kailer Yamamoto, thereby freeing up Leon Draisaitl to go back to playing with McDavid. With all due respect to those guys, I don’t think they break up that second line, which frankly has been awesome. McDavid will be playing with Athanasiou and Zack Kassian (who has two games remaining in his seven-game suspension). This gives the Oilers a one-two punch that they haven’t seen in a long time. The potential here for Athanasiou is tremendous bordering on ridiculous. Nothing is set in stone though – right now this is just a very, very promising possibility. But only a possibility. Just one worthy of rolling the dice on in all fantasy formats.
Ryan Kuffner’s prospect profile is here.
In Detroit, Athanasiou’s PP time will pretty much go directly to Sam Gagner. But for the long term this frees up a top six spot for Filip Zadina, in case there was any doubt that he would have that spot next year.
Fantasy Players this helps, in order:
Fantasy Players this hurts, in order:
Lots of chatter in our forum here on this deal – give your two cents here
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