The Goods: Gagne Bolts to Tampa

07/20/2010 12:54 AM -  Ian Gooding

On the heels of the massive Ilya Kovalchuk announcement, the Philadelphia Flyers and Tampa Bay Lightning announced some important news of their own. The Flyers were able to find a taker for Simon Gagne, as he moves to Tampa Bay for Matt Walker and a fourth-round pick in what amounts to be a salary dump. Let’s look at the fantasy implications of said deal.

The player whose value should be most positively affected by the deal is Gagne himself. Gagne should play on a line with fellow French-Canadian Vincent Lecavalier, who played alongside Gagne on the 2002 gold-medal winning Canadian Olympic team. Another player on that Canadian Olympic team was guess who… Lightning GM Steve Yzerman. Gagne and Lecavalier should light a fire under each other, which means that they could both very well improve on their 40 points (in 58 games) and 70 points, respectively, from last season. Mighty mite Martin St. Louis could join Gagne and Lecavalier on the Bolts’ first (or second) line to form a new French Connection line – a line that has the potential for explosive fantasy numbers. Another French-Canadian, Alex Tanguay, wasn’t able to benefit from this possible line combination, so it will be interesting if Gagne will be more successful.

The Bolts’ other line could also be a monster line fantasy-wise. Fifty-goal scorer Steven Stamkos should center Ryan Malone and Steve Downie. We know that Stamkos can rack up the points, and Malone and Downie should provide him plenty of time and space to do so. The Bolts now sport a top-6 set of forwards that can be rivaled by only a few teams. The defense and goaltending remain significant question marks, which could affect the plus/minus of all involved. However, the Bolts have to be considered at least a darkhorse in the Eastern Conference playoff race with this move.

Walker will probably be defenseman number 15 on the Flyers’ depth chart, so I won’t bother getting into his fantasy value. However, the deal has fantasy implications for the remaining Flyers, who will still send out three solid scoring lines. Ville Leino should cement his role in the Flyers’ top 6 with the trade, and James van Riemsdyk should also see more icetime than he did last season. Nikolai Zherdev, whose signing precipitated the Gagne trade, should also be secure as a top-6 forward unless he ends up in Peter Laviolette’s doghouse. A potential sleeper like Claude Giroux could still play on the third line, unless the Flyers decide to use Danny Briere as a center instead of a right wing, in which case Briere would be a third-line center behind Mike Richards and Jeff Carter. It is still possible, however, that the Flyers could trade another one of these forwards to clear the cap space needed to obtain another goalie.

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