The Florida Panthers have acquired Sam Reinhart from the Buffalo Sabres in exchange for goalie prospect Devon Levi and a 2022 first-round pick.

Reinhart has been one of the few bright spots on the Sabres roster during their prolonged rebuild, scoring a minimum of 20 goals in five of his last six seasons. He's logged 19-20 minutes per game for the Sabres during the last two seasons, so his departure will create a major hole. With Jack Eichel likely to be traded as well, expect Casey Mittelstadt and Dylan Cozens to take a huge step forward in terms of icetime and power-play time, whether they are ready or not. The Sabres may still bring in a veteran or two via free agency or an Eichel trade to reach the cap floor, so this is a very preliminary assumption.

This trade makes an already strong Panthers attack even deeper. Reinhart can play either center or on the wing, which makes him versatile as a top-6 option. The most ideal situation would have Reinhart on the right side of a top line with Aleksander Barkov and Jonathan Huberdeau, where his value could skyrocket. However, the Panthers' two top scorers were mainly used on separate lines last season, which means that Reinhart should benefit from having at least one of these scorers on his line. Given that the Panthers feature two legit scoring lines and Buffalo had just one, he won't always have to face an opponent's top shutdown unit.

You may remember Levi (Dobber Prospects profile) from the most recent World Junior Championship, where he faced off against another Panthers goalie prospect in Spencer Knight in the final. The emergence of Knight, along with the mammoth contract of Bobrovsky, meant that Levi would be looking at a very long path toward the NHL in the Panthers organization. Levi should still be given plenty of time to marinate in the Sabres organization along with fellow goaltending prospect Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen. Given the Sabres' current state, it's far too early to throw either into the fold for regular NHL duty, although UPL should still be ahead of Levi on the depth chart.

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Players this helps, in order:

Reinhart

Levi

Huberdeau

Barkov

Sam Bennett

Carter Verhaeghe

Cozens

Mittelstadt

Tage Thompson

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Players this hurts, in order:

Patric Hornqvist

Anthony Duclair

Frank Vatrano

Victor Olofsson

Anton Lundell

Grigori Denisenko

Eichel (only if the Sabres somehow don't trade him)

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