Philadelphia faltered last year and though it was clearly goaltending that sunk the team, they have decided to go out and overhaul their blue line anyway. That started with dumping Shayne Gostisbehere's contract, trading for both Rasmus Ristolainen and Ryan Ellis. They still have Cam York waiting in the wings, but they went out and added another veteran defenceman:

He is signed for one year and $900K. What does he bring to the Flyers? Let's get in there.

First, we have to say he's just not good defensively anymore. In fact, he's very bad: over the last three years, the only regular defenceman with a worse defensive impact than Yandle is Duncan Keith. He is truly at the bottom of the league with the Barrie's and the Rielly's and the Myers' of the world.

But the Flyers didn't sign him for a defensive presence, they signed him for the power play. They need it, too, as the team is 21^st in goals/60 on the power play over the last three years, worse than Buffalo and just ahead of Arizona. This past season saw them come in at 19^th and it's clear that is an area they want to improve.

He is the guy to do it, too. Over the last three seasons, despite being at the bottom of the league defensively, he was near the top of the league in power-play impact. The only defencemen above him were Victor Hedman, John Klingberg, and Torey Krug. Now, Yandle had a lot of good players to play with in Florida, but he'll have the same in Philadelphia; Couturier, Giroux, Farabee, Konecny, Hayes, and others will all contribute to the PP this year in significant amounts. They are all talented players, too. Put four of those guys with Yandle and let's watch him cook.

Of course, that caps Yandle's upside. He should be stuck on the third pair with top PP minutes, and that means about 17-18 minutes a night. He played to about a 40-point pace last year and that should be considered his upside this year. He just won't play enough at 5-on-5 to threaten the 50-point plateau.

This is a big problem for guys like Provorov and Ellis, though. As long as Yandle doesn't falter on PP1 (and I doubt he does), they won't sniff the top unit. That is a pretty big hit to both of their fantasy values. It might mean some PP2 minutes for Forsling in Florida, which is nice for him.

Who this helps

Aaron Ekblad

Gustav Forsling

Spencer Knight

Sean Couturier/Claude Giroux

Who this hurts

Ivan Provorov

Ryan Ellis

Aleksander Barkov

Jonathan Huberdeau