Pens Add Fehr

Shortly after the Penguins announced the acquisition of Nick Bonino from the Canucks, the announced the signing of unrestricted free agent forward Eric Fehr, giving him a new 3-year, $6 million deal.

It was noted that in the post-deals press conference, that the Penguins needed the Bonino deal, which saw them open a little bit of cap space up, in order to get the deal done with Fehr and in that, they got to add two roster players, not to mention some depth on the day.

Fehr, 29, is thought to be a bottom-six player, with the ability to fill in among the top-six, if needed.  With the Capitals in the 2015 season, he was a pool worthy player, scoring 19 goals and 33 points in 75 games, ranking him 170th among all forwards.

There is a fair chance that he could end up on a line with his newly-acquired teammate centre, Bonino, drawing up a reasonable checking/depth scoring line.  But that's something we won't know exactly, until the end of training camp.

Unless Fehr draws Crosby or Malkin as his centre in the regular season, I don't think he'll see tremendous gains in his offense, but I would move him up a bracket or possibly two, giving him a little bit more value at the pool draft in October.

Fehr's focus should be on the defensive side of the puck, especially since the Pittsburgh defensemen will likely have the green light to carry the puck forward and they'll need adequate cover, when they go.  With that being said, I'm not going to get too carried away with giving him an enormous boost to his projections to the year, but I would be fairly tickled, if I was to get a guy like him later on.