Two days of free agency have come and gone. Day 2 didn't feature nearly as much activity as Day 1, though there were two significant players finding new homes. The links for the Fantasy Takes (written by Mike) are listed below.

Fantasy Take: Saad Signs in St. Louis – Part of the post-Vladimir Tarasenko plan.

Fantasy Take: Tampa Adds Corey Perry – If you can't beat 'em, join 'em.

Late Thursday, the once-docile Rangers added even more toughness, acquiring Ryan Reaves from the Golden Knights for a third-round pick. The Tom Wilson incident has clearly been on the minds of the Rangers, as they have also added Barclay Goodrow, Sammy Blais, and Jarred Tinordi this offseason. Widely regarded as one of the league's toughest players, Reaves recorded back-to-back 300-hit seasons in 2018-19 and 2019-20. Artemi Panarin probably feels like he's 10 feet tall now. In related news, opening night for the Rangers is on October 13 in Washington. Expect plenty of fireworks and bad blood and all that other stuff.

Also on Thursday, the Penguins signed Danton Heinen to a one-year, $1.1 million contract. Thought to be an up-and-coming scorer after a 47-point rookie season in 2017-18 with Boston, Heinen has seen has fantasy value decline since being traded to the Ducks in February 2020. In fairness, he was used in more of a defensive role for the Ducks, spending more time on the penalty kill than on the power play. For the 26-year-old Heinen, this is a one-year "prove it" contract, where he may receive an opportunity at some point to play alongside Sidney Crosby or Evgeni Malkin (once he returns from injury). He's not a player I would label as a sleeper right away, but keep an eye on the line combinations during the season.

Mathieu Perreault has signed a one-year contract with Montreal worth $950,000. He has experienced reduced output over his last three seasons, scoring at below a 0.4 PTS/GP pace for the Jets. Expect him to be a depth forward with the Habs.

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There were also some other signings announced on Thursday, although they didn't involve players changing teams (at least not on that day).

The most significant signing involved Zach Werenski cashing in big. The Blue Jackets signed their top defenseman to a six-year, $57.5 million contract. That works out to a cap hit of $9.583 million to begin in 2022-23, so cap league owners have an entire season to prepare. This contract may seem like an overpayment, but it purchases five UFA years while keeping Werenski with a team that has had recent difficulty keeping its top players.

Notice that Werenski was also paid slightly more than the recently traded Seth Jones to stay in Columbus. Also notice the recently signed contracts. What flat cap?   

Top AAV for NHL 'D' in 2022-23

$11.5M — Erik Karlsson
$11M — Drew Doughty
*$9.583M — Zach Werenski
*$9.5M — Seth Jones
$9.059 — Roman Josi
*$9M — Dougie Hamilton
*$9M — Cale Makar
$8.8M — Alex Pietrangelo
*$8.45M — Miro Heiskanen

*-contract signed in July 2021

— Chris Johnston (@reporterchris) July 30, 2021

Even though he was held to just five power-play points in an injury-shortened season, Werenski is an effective power-play defenseman, reaching double-digit power-play points in his four previous seasons.  It will be interesting to find out whether this contract affects what power-play specialist Quinn Hughes asks for.

The Rangers signed Filip Chytil to a two-year contract believed to be $2.3 million per season. In his third full season, Chytil broke the half-point-per-game mark for the first time with 22 points in 42 games. His icetime (13:14 TOI in 2020-21) continues to be limited because of the number of scoring options for the Rangers. Scoring-wise, the Rangers are shaping up to be a very deep team, which could benefit Chytil in some way eventually.

Jake Bean received a three-year extension from the Blue Jackets for $2.33 million per season. Last week, he was acquired from Carolina for a second-round pick. Bean was tied for second among rookie defensemen in assists and tied for third in points. Yet because Werenski was locked up long-term, Bean's upside could be limited. For more on Bean, you can check out Mike's Fantasy Take on his trade to Columbus.

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Back to Day 1 of free agency for a moment. Whether that day is July 1 or another day (as has been the case for the past two offseasons), it's a day of absolute informational overload for the hockey fan. The suspense of many offseason moves seems to be resolved quickly, and we have plenty of time to digest what a team will look like in its entirety. As a writer, though, it would be nice if these announcements were spread out over a longer period of time! But alas, the NHL doesn't exist to make my work situation more convenient.

With that, I just wanted to acknowledge the fine work of Dobber and Mike that day. I haven't read all of their fantasy takes from that day, but the ones I've read have been outstanding.

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For the next little while (today but also beyond today), I'll focus on players who are listed on the Top 100 Roto Rankings. Many updates will be for goalies because goalie values are often tied to the team they play for and do not completely isolate the goalie's own ability. I'll start today with Philipp Grubauer, who might be the player I've discussed the most via Twitter (aside from the ever-important question of who will play net for Buffalo and Arizona).

I have to admit that I was stunned that Seattle was the team that landed Grubauer. A Chris Driedger/Vitek Vanecek goalie tandem seemed reasonable for the Kraken, even if neither is a proven starting goalie. I suspected Grubauer would be signing elsewhere after the Avalanche used a significant portion of their cap space to sign Gabriel Landeskog right before free agency, but Seattle wasn't on my radar.

One great unknown of the coming season is what Seattle will look like. On the surface, they have a strong defense, some decent options on offense, but no one of gamebreaker quality. This team could resemble the early days of the Minnesota Wild (a style of play that has turned out to span much of their existence). The Kraken won't play exciting run-and-gun hockey like Vegas, but they'll win their share of tight-checking 2-1 games.

It's easy to write Seattle off as an expansion team, but also foolish to after what we saw with Vegas. I don't see the Kraken having that level of success, but they're also a possible bubble playoff team in their first season. I've seen projections of them finishing as high as second in the Pacific, which seems too high for my liking even with what appears to be a weaker division.

Fantasy Take: Seattle Kraken Sign Philipp Grubauer and Jaden Schwartz

As for Grubauer's overall value, it has definitely decreased with the signing. By how much is certainly up for debate. Colorado was the ideal situation for him fantasy-wise. He played over 70 percent of his team's games in 2020-21, a number that could have been even higher had he not been on COVID protocol for a couple weeks in April. The Avalanche finishing first overall allowed Grubauer to maximize wins, as he finished only one win behind league-leader Andrei Vasilevskiy.

The team also had an effect on his ratios (1.95 GAA, .922 SV%), but it's also worth mentioning that the other three goalies that Colorado used had the following save percentages in fewer than 10 games: .913, .886, .838. Grubauer is a decent goalie, although how he stacks up to the league's elite is debatable. The point is that Grubauer will be bringing quality goaltending to the Kraken.

Besides the downgrade on teams, Grubauer is facing a workload decline. Driedger was front and center in his snazzy Seattle Kraken jersey during the expansion draft, so I don’t think he’s going anywhere. He's an upgrade from the Avalanche backups from last season (Jonas Johansson, Devan Dubnyk, Hunter Miska), so Grubauer might be looking at 60 percent of the workload as opposed to the 75-plus percent that he would have received from the Avalanche.

What I'm expecting from Grubauer is this: Fewer starts, much fewer wins, and slightly worse ratios that you'll still be able to tolerate. That's an overall downgrade for sure, but that doesn't make him a goalie to flat out avoid. Whether you draft him will depend on where he is ranked.

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For more fantasy hockey discussion, or to reach out to me, you can follow me on Twitter @Ian_Gooding