The Florida Panthers have signed forward Evan Rodrigues to a four-year deal worth $3.0M AAV per season.

The Panthers get: an underrated and (until now) underpaid forward who can play any position up front, and both special teams. Rodrigues had 39 points in 69 games (a 46-point pace) playing mostly with Mikko Rantanen and Nathan MacKinnon. He had very good advanced metrics (both possession stats and expected goals). He is not an overly physical player, but he is a responsible one. He won't get that kind of deployment with Florida, but he should be able to chip in 35 to 40 points from a third line that his arrival will improve. He also makes a great addition in terms of being able to swap in anywhere seamlessly if an injury strikes somebody in the top six.

Fantasy Players Impacted: Rodrigues is not going to impact too many players on the Panthers. In the playoffs, we all saw Nick Cousins really click on a line with Sam Bennett and Matt Tkachuk. It was such an effective line that one wonders if that line will stick to start this season. Rodrigues would obviously be an upgrade to Cousins – but Cousins wasn't getting many points, even as a part of that big line.

With the team trading Anthony Duclair, Rodrigues would simply gobble up Duclair's PP time, which was 1:21 per game. That would muscle out prospect Grigori Denisenko from seeing much PP time, as Denisenko is expected to finally make the team out of camp.

Fantasy Players this helps, in order:

1. None

Fantasy Players this hurts, in order:

1. Rodrigues
2. Denisenko
3. Cousins