Leopold

Fantasy Analysis: The Florida Panthers have traded Jordan Leopold to the Pittsburgh Penguins for a 2010 second round draft pick.

The Panthers get: a great draft pick for a player who has underacheived thanks in large part to injuries throughout his career.

The Penguins get: a defenseman who at one time may have had 50-point offensive upside, but injuries have probably knocked that down to below 40. Then again, this is Pittsburgh and even a defenseman on the third power-play unit is capable of padding his upside by five or 10 points.

Fantasy Players Impacted: Leopold is an unrestricted free agent after this season, so this has no impact on any of their d-men as far as the future is concerned. However, this eats up much of what little cap space the team has and will force them to shed salary if they want to bring in a winger. Sergei Gonchar and Alex Goligoski will still man the top power play and now Leopold will join Kris Letang on the second unit. That’s an upgrade to Brooks Orpik. This only negatively impacts Goligoski in that if he were to slump then Leopold may take his spot, where as that was not a threat before this deal.

Players this helps, in order:

1. Jordan Leopold

2.Dmitri Kulikov

Players this hurts, in order:

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1. Brooks Orpik

2. Alex Goligoski