-- The Buffalo Sabres
continued their busy offseason
by acquiring left wing Jeff Skinner from the Carolina Hurricanes on Aug. 2. Skinner improves Buffalo's wing depth and boosts its power play, which finished 20th in the NHL last season (19.1 percent; led League at 24.5 percent in 2016-17). Other than the obvious impact on Eichel, the boost from Skinner should carry over throughout the entire top six, including forward Sam Reinhart and rookie center Casey Mittelstadt.
Reinhart had an NHL career-high 50 points (25 goals, 25 assists) last season, mostly playing on the top line. He's a likely breakout candidate if he holds his spot on the top line and first power-play unit with Eichel. With the departure of second line center Ryan O'Reilly, Mittelstadt will have an expanded role. While it's unlikely he'll be on a line or power-play unit with Skinner, Mittelstadt should benefit from Buffalo's other offseason additions (Rasmus Dahlin, Carter Hutton) and could find himself in the Calder Trophy race among the
NHL's top rookies
. Buffalo now has multiple serviceable wings to potentially play with Mittelstadt, including Kyle Okposo, Jason Pominville (potential 2019 unrestricted free agent), Conor Sheary, Vladimir Sobotka and Tage Thompson.
-- The Dallas Stars have made
several key improvements
this summer, including hiring coach Jim Montgomery and adding wing Valeri Nichushkin. Montgomery will be tasked with balancing the Stars' top-heavy forward group of Tyler Seguin (NHL career-high 40 goals; 78 points), Jamie Benn (79 points) and Alexander Radulov (career-high 72 points). The return of Nichushkin, who spent the past two seasons playing in the Kontinental Hockey League, should help this effort. There was a significant drop in production from the top line of Benn, Seguin and Radulov to their depth forwards Mattias Janmark (35 points), Radek Faksa (33 points) and Devon Shore (32 points). If Nichushkin can produce in a range (40-50 points) between the two groups, the Stars should be a top 10 fantasy team.
Another overlooked storyline for the Stars is the extra motivation Seguin should have in his contract year. The 26-year-old can potentially become an unrestricted free agent on July 1, 2019 and could realistically have over 80 points for the second time in his NHL career (84 in 2013-14). He ranks among the top 10 in the NHL in points (384), power-play points (132) and shots on goal (1,488) since joining the Stars in 2013-14, with at least 72 points, 24 PPP and 278 SOG in each of those five seasons. In terms of being consistently among the fantasy elite, Seguin is in the same conversation as forwards Alex Ovechkin, Sidney Crosby and Patrick Kane.
