Kessel Turns Over as newest Leaf

Boston has finally traded disgruntled RW Phil Kessel to the Toronto Maple Leafs for two 1st round and a 2nd round draft pick. Immediately the Leafs opened the vault and signed Kessel to a 5 year deal worth $27M.

Fantasy Impact – the rumor around the league is that Kessel was not a popular guy in the young Bruins locker room and that he and Bruins head coach Claude Julien also did not see eye to eye. Now Kessel will join the Leafs and become the teams’ best RW hand down. Poolies should be smiling widely at the prospect of Kessel playing a ton of minutes and will be getting the tap on the shoulder from head coach Ron Wilson in all offensive situations. Kessel’s arrival should also mean good news and added offensive input for the likes Mikael Grabovski and Alexei Ponikarovsky; the Leafs center and left winger on the teams’ top line. The Leafs PP should be improved as well. Now, make no mistake, Kessel won’t be riding shotgun alongside Marc Savard, but his fantasy stats should be about the same. This of course all assumes that Kessel is 100% when he returns to regular season action some time in November.

For the Bruins, this may be a little bit of addition via subtraction. In addition to Kessel’s “lone wolf" sentiment in the locker room and alienation with the coach, there are further rumors that Kessel was not comfortable with the Bruins media either. There is no doubt that the team is going to miss the 36 goals in 70 games that Kessel tallied last year. But his absence also means opportunity for the likes of Ryder and Blake Wheeler. Wheeler seems to be the most likely candidate to receive Kessel’s minutes. Neither Wheeler or Ryder are as talented as Kessel so there might be a slight drop on production for the likes of Savard and Lucic. Similarly, the Bruins PP should see a slight decline in output, but as mentioned the Bruins are a tight team and Kessel’s absence won’t hurt them from a chemistry perspective.

Lastly, don’t be surprised if the Bruins are active toward the trade deadline with now two first round draft picks in the coming two years, as the two first rounders will be attractive to teams looking to off-load veteran salaries for draft picks.

Heatley Swims with the Sharks

Ottawa was finally able to get some value back for the disgrunteld Dany Heatley after then dealt Heatley and a 5th round draft pick to San Jose for Milan Michalek, Jonathan Cheechoo and a 2nd rounder.

Fantasy Impact - for Joe Thornton and the San Jose Sharks, their ability to land a bona fide 50 gaol scorer for essentially Michalek and a 2nd rounder, is impressive for the Sharks. It's been a few season since Heatley hit the 50 gaol plateau, but he has done it twice and he'll get prime time minutes with Thornton and as much PP time as he can stomach. Heatley's arrival will also impact the Sharks in another way: what happens to Marleau. Marleau also plays LW, same as Heatley and it makes me wonder if he'll be asked to move to the RW, or perhaps back to his natural center position and allow last years' RW sensation Devin Setoguchi to remain with Thornton and Heatley? Depending on where utlimately either of those two guys end up playing, your best bet for poolies in keeper leagues is to trade Marleau and/or Setoguchi as their trade value may not be any higher than it is right now. We did see Thornton between Marleau and Heatley at the recent Team Canada Olympic Training camp and they were reportedly excellent together. Poolies should also recognize that the Sharks PP has become even deadlier and perhaps the best in the league in Thornton-Setoguchi-Heatley-Boyle-Marleau as their top 5 unit.

For Ottawa, they receive a younger very solid offensive contributor in Michalek, and a big question mark in Cheechoo. They did not receive an NHL ready defenceman as part of this deal, and that could come back to haunt this team. Michalek will now patrol the top spot on the left side beside Spezza and he should do very well. He's not the natural goal scorer that Heatley is, but he did tally 23+ plus goals for the last 3 seasons. He's only 24 and still got some room to improve. That said, he's not ever going to score 50 goals. Jonathan Cheechoo was a bust last season after hitting the 20+ goal plateau the previous 3. On the upside, if he's healthy and gets a decent play-making center to play with, Cheechoo should see 20 goals yet again this season. On the downside, he may just be one of those players who's best year(s) are behind him. For the Senators, the Oilers offer was a better deal for them. Right now, they need Cheechoo to rediscover his scoring touch and they need Michalek to tally at least 30 goals this year for the bad taste in their mouths to dissipate. For the rest of the Senators, they will at least be able to move on now that the Heatley fiasco is behind the team. If the Senators stink early this season, both Cheechoo and Michalek could be moved yet again as the Sens start from scratch and rebuild.

New Look Puckjunkie Finally Up

Usually our blog is reserved for rumours and innuendo throughout the season, but we thought we should drop in a note about our long awaited site redesign. It's literally taken YEARS, but we think we finally have it looking the way we want! Combined with an enhanced Predictor this year (new categories include faceoff wins and faceoff %) we really think we are now the be all and end all of the fantasy hockey prediction business - not that we weren't before, but the look was so 1990's. But who are we to brag? Post a response and let us know what you think about the new look Puckjunkie. And then make sure you have your subscription to the Predictor, because training camp is about to start and hockey season isn't far off!