Filatov

Fantasy Impact: Both Nikita Filatov and Evgeni Grachev were traded for picks today. Filatov went to Ottawa from Columbus for the 66th overall pick. Grachev went to St. Louis from the Rangers for the 72nd overall pick.

The Blue Jackets get: prospect Thomas Tynan with that pick. Some info on him can be found here.

The Rangers get: prospect Steven Fogarty, a bit of a project at forward with some upside. Basically, they didn’t have the time or space they needed to give Grachev, so starting fresh with a new project works.

The Sens get: in Filatov, one of the most skilled prospects in the league. He has the highest upside, but also carries the highest KHL risk and a pretty big ‘bust’ risk. This is as extreme a ‘boom’ or ‘bust’ as you can get. A year from now, they could be geniuses or goats. A year from now, we could be talking about him as if he was the next big superstar…or we could be laughing at Ottawa for wasting time on this “Pavel Brendl”.

The Blues get: A big Russian winger with skill, and that should help the transition of bringing Vladimir Tarasenko over next season. Grachev will do better in St. Louis than he would have in New York, but the Blues are pretty deep as well.

Fantasy Players Impacted: Filatov had very little fantasy value. He has dropped like a rock. Now he shoots back up to where he was. He gets an opportunity in Ottawa. Right now. If he can’t take advantage of it though, his value sinks like a stone – and quickly.

He takes Foligno off the top six (thank goodness) and bumps Colin Greening down for this year. But expectations for Greening shouldn’t have been too high anyway. If all goes well and Filatov does…even decently, then he’ll bump Milan Michalek down as well.

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Grachev will get in about 20 games this season, but needs most of his season to be in the AHL. He and Tarasenko would then make the team in 2012-13.

Fantasy Players this helps, in order:

1. Filatov

2. massive gap

3. Jason Spezza

4. Grachev

5. Tarasenko

Fantasy Players this hurts, in order:

1. Foligno

2. Greening

3. Erik Condra