hemsky

Fantasy Impact: The Senators have acquired Ales Hemsky from the Edmonton Oilers for third- and fourth-round draft picks.

The Senators get: a skilled winger with a lot of upside who is injury prone. However, with the roles currently divied out in Edmonton, Hemsky was relegated (often) to the third line and second power-play unit. That will not be the case in Ottawa as he is expected to play with Jason Spezza.

The Oilers get: shafted. I find it hard to believe that if they eat half of Hemsky’s salary (which they will), they could only get a third and a fourth for him. It’s not terrible or lopsided, but it’s slightly below where I’d have him pegged. Still, in my books it’s addition by subtraction. You can’t have that skill set on your third line. It doesn’t work. So the Oilers are a better team.

Fantasy Players Impacted: Hemsky’s value just shot up. Not half as much as it would have with Pittsburgh, but a definite improvement. Nail Yakupov will see a jump in his numbers. Hemsky missed a quarter of last season and Yakupov produced better numbers. Now Hemsky is out of the way. Look for Yakupov to step up.

In Ottawa, this could be just what the doctor ordered for Jason Spezza. And if the pair of Spezza and Hemsky click, you could see Spezza post eye-popping numbers (25+ points in the remaining games). And if that happens – this will reduce the ice time of the other scoring line, which has slowed down lately as it is (Kyle Turris, Clarke MacArthur, Bobby Ryan)

Fantasy Players this helps, in order:

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1. Yakupov

2. Hemsky

3. Spezza

Fantasy Players this hurts, in order:

1. Nobody, really. To a small extent the Kyle Turris line.