The Detroit Red Wings have acquired Jakub Vrana, Richard Panik, a 2021 first-round pick and a 2022 second-round draft pick from the Washington Capitals for Anthony Mantha.

The Red Wings get: A potential first-line winger who is just entering his prime, plus a good depth winger and two more draft picks to give them 12 picks next summer with five of those in the first two rounds!

The Capitals get: A huge winger with a ton of skill – a rare combination. Rare to get a 6-5 player who can post 80 points, but Mantha can certainly do that. Can you imagine putting Mantha and 6-4 Tom Wilson out on the same ice?

Fantasy Players Impacted: So much to unravel here.

Vrana, by popular opinion, was buried in Washington. Mistreated. Hell, he was even getting scratched as recently as last week. He's a Ferrari who was being criticized for not plowing the fields enough. He's a former 13^th overall draft pick who just turned 25 and was on a 62-point pace last season despite averaging just 14:53 of ice time. In fact, he has yet to average 15 minutes of ice time in his entire career! This despite being one of the top players in Washington in Pts/60. Ice time won't be a problem in Detroit. In fact, it will be fun seeing what he does with 18 or 19 minutes in a game and his choice of linemates. Look for him to play with Dylan Larkin and fellow Czech Filip Zadina – each of whom should see a nice bump in production.

The addition of Panik to the deal, which was strictly contract/cap related, likely pushes one of Sam Gagner, Mathias Brome or Evgeny Svechnikov out of the lineup. Probably a rotation of the four of them.

Mantha also escapes a situation where he wasn't growing. He was scratched once this year as well. But at the same time, when healthy, he has often been the most dominant player on the Wings. He is 19 months older than Vrana and is signed for the next three seasons at $5.7M AAV. Mantha also gets injured a lot:

Broken leg (2014)
Broken finger (2017)
Groin injury, hand injury (2018)
Knee injury (2019)
Lung injury (2020)

Mantha is a potential 80-point player. He'll certainly get the chance to. The Caps paid a ton to get him, so you can be damn sure that he'll see the bulk of his time in the top six playing with the best players. But he needs to stay healthy.

Fantasy Players This Helps, In Order:

1. Jakub Vrana
2. Anthony Mantha
3. Dylan Larkin
4. Filip Zadina

Fantasy Players This Hurts, In Order:

1. Evgeny Svechnikov
2. Sam Gagner