With the likely departures of both Mike Hoffman and Evgenii Dadonov, the Florida Panthers are starting down the barrel of replacing 60 goals a season. That is really tough to do internally, and likely can't even be done externally without a couple monster UFA signings. This isn't that, but Vinnie Hinostroza is off to Florida on a one-year deal.

What Florida gets

Play fantasy hockey long enough, and you'll develop a list of players you were once really high on and you just can't give up. Hinostroza is that guy for me. The reason? He shoots. Over the last three seasons, Hinostroza is around the 75^th percentile in shot attempt rates among regular forwards at 14.68 per 60 minutes. Guys within 0.5 shot attempts/60 of that number: Blake Coleman, Tomas Tatar, Dadonov, Brad Marchand, Jake DeBrusk, Chris Kreider, Jason Zucker, and Brandon Saad. That's a long list of guys who are reliable 20-goal scorers.

It goes beyond that. He does well in transition (90^th percentile in controlled zone entries/60) and finding teammates (70^th percentile in shot assists), according to Corey Sznajder's zone data. We have a player that shoots much more than the average forward, is better in transition than the average forward, and seems to have good playmaking skills.

So why does he have 34 career goals at the age of 26? I was curious, so I looked at the centres Hinostroza played the most with in each of his four seasons. This is what I found (from HockeyViz):

2016-17: Tanner Kero (CHI)
2017-18: David Kampf (CHI)
2018-19: Brad Richardson (ARI)
2019-20: Derek Stepan (ARI)

The first guy isn't in the NHL anymore, the second has amassed 46 points in his first three years in the league, the third guy is 34 years old with 13 assists in the last two years and the fourth has been on a slow decline and was far from the same player in 2020 that he was in 2016. It's not to say Hinostroza didn't get chances with Toews or Schmaltz at times, but when you're playing 44 percent of your minutes across two seasons with Brad Richardson, it's unlikely to lead to high-end fantasy success.

So now we get to Florida. There's a great spot on the top line with Barkov/Huberdeau should the team see fit to try Hinostroza there. The team also added Alex Wennberg earlier in free agent frenzy, and that's probably where Vinnie needs to be. I wouldn't want him on the top line playing 18 minutes a night, but second line with 15 minutes a night and secondary PP usage? I think we could see success here.

It's a question of how all the wingers fit. They lost Hoffman and Dadonov, sure, but they added Patric Hornqvist and at the least, Owen Tippett is on the way. They might want to give Tippett the second-line slotting while having Hinostroza further down the lineup as depth scoring and insurance.

Regardless, Hinostroza has a shot at the top PP unit. Barkov/Huberdeau/Yandle are locks, and I assume Hornqvist gets the first crack. It's possible Tippett blows the doors off early and forces their hand, but with Joel Quenneville behind the bench, I'd lean to Hinostroza if only for familiarity reasons. This hurts Tippett for the simple reason that it creates competition.

Given that Arizona had him constantly in the bottom-6, this doesn't mean much fantasy-wise for them or their prospects.

Who this helps

Vinnie Hinostroza

Alex Wennberg

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Who this hurts

Owen Tippett