The Florida Panthers have started shedding some salary, and it's begun with Brett Connolly. The former 20-goal scorer had fallen out of favour with the Panthers and was infrequently in the lineup. He has been dealt to Chicago in a significant deal, at least in the number of pieces. It breaks down as follows:

To Chicago

Riley Stillman

Henrik Borgstrom

7^th-round pick

To Florida

Lucas Carlsson

Lucas Wallmark

Shout out to Lucas Wallmark, who is about to start his second stint with the Panthers in the last year. Anyway, this obviously has a lot of fantasy implications so let's start with the Chicago side.

What the 'Hawks get

Brett Connolly was, once upon a time, one of the top even-strength goal scorers in the league. Not hyperbole, either: in the four seasons from 2016-2020, he was 14^th among all regular forwards in goals per 60 minutes at 5-on-5 (1.1), higher than names like Anders Lee, Evgeni Malkin, and John Tavares. His problem is ice time, and the fact that he's not very good defensively. He is the definition of a pure goal scorer. He fell out of favour quickly in Florida, and now here we are. He is a capable middle-6 scorer, but he needs help from his line mates to do damage. He probably starts in the middle-6 somewhere, though the recent acquisition of Vinnie Hinostroza muddles that a bit.

Riley Stillman was one of the better Florida defence prospects, but even our own Dobber Prospects profile is fairly low on him, having him somewhere as a third-pair guy as his upside. Though in Chicago, a solid third-pair defenceman would be an upgrade. Whether that's what he ends up being, time will tell. I will say he only has 26 points in his last 89 AHL games. That is not very good for a guy who is now 23 years old. At the same time, he only has to be better than Nikita Zadorov to earn a full-time roster spot.

There aren't many higher-profile prospects who've amounted to absolutely nothing than Borgstrom. His PNHLe (projecting point potential) when he was drafted, and even the year after, was a first liner. Since then, it's just been a steady nosedive, and now it's a wonder if he'll ever be an NHLer, let alone a first liner. He is a project for the 'Hawks to work on, anyway. At this point, a lottery ticket isn't a bad thing for this team, given their lack of depth.

What the Panthers get

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Carlsson is an intriguing guy. He has put up decent shot and point numbers in the AHL but couldn't stick with the Blackhawks. It seems like some of his underlying metrics are at least fine in his very small NHL sample, so there could be something here. The problem for Carlsson is he's a left-shot blue liner, and the team already has Keith Yandle, Anton Stralman, MacKenzie Weegar, and Gustav Forsling that can play on the left. There is just too much depth here for Carlsson to get regularly meaningful minutes, so not much to get excited about here fantasy-wise. It may be a couple years until those contracts start running out when Carlsson gets a regular chance.

Wallmark is more of a known quantity at forward. He is a good play-driver, but is known more for his defensive game than he is for offence. That may not be a bad thing for the Panthers, and he will probably be very useful for them. He just won't be very useful in the fantasy realm. I mean, he has 94 shots on goal in his last 83 NHL regular season games.

Who this helps

Brett Connolly

Lucas Wallmark

Philipp Kurashev

Who this hurts

Vinnie Hinostroza

Ryan Carpenter

Nikita Zadorov