Alright Kyle, listen up!

This is how you make this happen.

In two separate deals, one with a third team to retain salary.

The first deal, that nets us Karlsson, looks like this.

PENS Get
- Karlsson at 7M

SHARKS Get
- POJ
-1st Rd Pick 24
-2nd Rd pick 25 that is conditional to another 1st if we make the conference finals/Cup final
-Prospect of their choosing (Hallander, Poulin, Puustinen, Nylander, Pickering)

I'd like to see us keep Smith and Nylander but if you have to give them up so be it. You overpay for EK.

The Sharks are in a rebuild and shouldn't want any actual roster pieces.

For the salary to work out under the cap, you have to have a third team also retain some of EK's number.

My idea on this which makes the most sense for the team is to move Guentzel to Chicago.

This trade would look something like

BLACKHAWKS Get
-Guentzel (6M/1yr)
-DeSmith (1.8M/1yr)

PENS Get
-1st Rd pick (They have 2... could maybe make a stipulation that we get the higher one)
-2nd rd pick (They have 3 and we need all the draft picks we can get)
-A defensive prospect of our choosing (plenty to chose from, including Allan, Phillips, Vlasic)

This makes a ton of sense for both teams. For the Pens, well I’ll get to that in a minute. For the Blackhawks, they get an insane first line of Jake-Bedard-Hall. If Jake doesn’t work out completely they can sell him at the deadline. He’s from Nebraska, maybe he doesn’t have them on his no trade list. The Hawks also could use a backup goalie, have the cap space, and would be dealing from a position of strength, with multiple draft picks still available after using those 2 (another 1st and 2 more 2nds).

This fills a need for both teams because we have to clear salary to get EK, this clears 7.8 from our current books.

Some might say, well what about Jake’s spot on the top line?!

Well, how about we sign Tarasenko to a 4 year 6M deal of some sort? To do that, we would have to swing another deal with a team like Anaheim to shed Granlund as well, using some other pieces we won’t necessarily need to perhaps clear some more space.

Something like

DUCKS Get

-Granlund
-Rutta
-Smith/Pickering/whoever they actually would want
-DOC..?
-Mid rd draft pick

The Ducks blueline is absolutely terrible; they could actually use Rutta. If they wanted Pettersson we could do that too, but maybe just keep him cause we could use him. Granlund isn’t a bad player necessarily either, it’s just the no trade protection and big hit makes him super dumpable.

If we trade Granlund signing Tarasenko (or Kane later on) would be extra important. But hey maybe Nylander can step up this year if he isn’t involved? These moves though, immediately make the Pens the most stacked blue line in the league, with 3 number 1 guys on 3 different pairings.

I get it, Chicago might not pay that much for Jake and DeSmith because of the retention, but whatever. We should milk what we can out of Jake. Maybe take the prospect out. The thing is, Jake is a great player and I don’t want to see him on another team.

But we can get some legit capital back and I have a feeling Chicago would LOVE to make this happen.


Pens Line up after moves

Tarasenko—sid—Rakell/Rust
Smith—Geno—Rakell/Rust
Nylander—Eller—Carter
Nieto—Acciari—Johnsson

Who knows what’ll happen with Carter (buried?), Nylander (traded?), and the other guys he signed this offseason. None of the bottom line spots are nailed down. If he ends up keeping Granlund, it gives us more versatility down the lineup as well.

EK – Graves
Letang—Pettersson
Petry—Rutta

Smith/Ruhwedel

Oh yeah, also Kyle, sign Dylan Ferguson to a one year deal like Neddy and have them fight to back up Jarry.

I have some other ideas, about maybe trading Jarry to Anaheim and getting the Ducks to retain on Gibson but ya know, with that new deal, I don’t see them moving him.

Let’s get it!

This is a lot to digest, and there's a couple of things you said that I'm not sure I understand, but I'll try to break it down.



I'm not sure how the Sharks view Karlsson, whether they see him as a 4x$11.5M liability that they want to dump as much of as possible, or an opportunity to cash in on his Norris trophy by trading him for a big return. He’s probably somewhere in between, but I lean a little more toward the former because of his age, cap hit, and recent history before this past season. I also doubt that there’s a bidding war for him, because most of the teams that expect to be in the playoffs don’t have the cap flexibility or desire to make such a big and risky move. Pittsburgh is probably the best fit because of their aging core and the need to add a big piece to get them back into the playoffs. What I’m trying to say is I think this is a reasonable package for him if you really do mean they get to pick their favorite Penguin prospect. San Jose will want more, but I don’t think they’re going to get it. I don’t think San Jose will like retaining $4.5M for 4 years either, but if they want to move him, that’s what they’ll have to do.



I’m a little bit confused on what you mean here. I assume you’re talking about Pittsburgh making one or both of the separate trades below to free up cap space for Karlsson, not making the above trade a 3-way with another team retaining part of Karlsson’s salary so that he lands in Pittsburgh at less than $7M. I don’t think the latter would work, because nobody’s going to want to retain salary on somebody else’s bad contract for 4 years.



This would definitely have to be the lower of Chicago’s 1st-round picks, not the higher, and they’re not going to let Pittsburgh take any prospect they want (e,g, Korchinski).

This seems like a lot for a non-playoff team to give up for a couple of 1-year rentals, but like you said, they can afford the draft picks and cap space, so I guess it depends on how competitive Chicago wants to be this year, and whether they want to extend Guentzel and think they have a good chance of doing so (though they should be able to get back at least a 1st if they trade him at the deadline). They’ve given up players younger than him because they didn’t fit their rebuild timeline, but that thinking may have changed now that they have Bedard.



I wouldn’t give Tarasenko 4 years at $6M. I assume they want the team to be better this season, so I’d be inclined to hang onto Guentzel instead, and worry about replacing him next summer if they can’t extend him.



You don’t show anything coming back to Pittsburgh, so I assume it’s “future considerations”, basically giving Smith or Pickering, O’Connor and the draft pick to dump Granlund and Rutta.

I think this is way below market value for a 2x$7.75M cap dump, especially now that there don’t seem to be as many teams willing to take on bad contracts for assets. Of the three trades you’ve proposed here, this is the one that makes the least sense to me. I don’t see it working unless Anaheim really likes Granlund and Rutta and thinks they can both make a significant contribution to their team over the next 2 years.

Well for San Jose, I feel like they certainly want to maximize their return, but you're also right, the bidding war is over; Carolina picked up DeAngelo. Basically it would be a three way trade so that San Jose can retain, and then the third team can retain as well.

I feel like that return I posted is more than fair for San Jose. They'll want POJ and a first, bare min. The next two pieces are where we get murkier with them wanting more of our prospect pool, and where I would like to see us keep Smith.

Now, whether or not the third team is Chicago or Anaheim, that depends on what they want and how much it'll cost to dump/shed.

The Guentzel option brings us pieces back. The Anaheim one just brings the cost up more, and you have to think that Jake has them on his no trade list.

I considered a few things with Anaheim though, because they have wanted to move Gibson, and we've been linked there as well. Also, they have yet to sign Troy Terry. Is he in their long term plans?

So the trade itself would need to include another team to retain some more salary. If we have to pay to dump some combination of Granlund/Rutta/DeSmith then I would say we should do that.

But if we pull it off with Chicago, and shed some salary that way, we can actually get something back instead of paying out the a$$ for EK.

I feel like Chicago would be salivating to get this done. Now that they have Bedard, they would be setting him up for big time success with 2 legit top line wingers. Plus, they'll have the space to massively extend him, which we might have a little trouble doing.

If you asked me straight up if I would rather have Jake for 8x9 or Vlad for 4x6 I would have to take Vlad. He isn't the same player but 2 years ago he set a career high in points. He is a high skill player. He isn't as good at even strength and he might not be a stat stuffer like Jake, but he is also more dynamic and can play other spots in the lineup. Jake is stapled to Sid's line and hasn't moved once his entire career.

As far as Anaheim being a pure dump zone, look at their cap space. It's bonkers how much they have, and Verbeek has said he wants to weaponize their cap space. This would be a good way to do it.

But if they want to move Gibson for Jarry? Or Terry for... idk, someone who we can trade there lol, then it makes things a lot more interesting.

I just Kyle sees this and it makes him realize we can pull it off lol

Anaheim's cap space is a little misleading because they still have to sign Terry, Zegras and Drysdale, but they should still have plenty of room to take Granlund and Rutta, and those guys should help their team, so I don't disagree that they would be willing to take them. I just don't think you're offering enough for a cap dump of that size.

Sending players like Granlund and Rutta to Anaheim would be a better way for Pittsburgh to get cap space for Karlsson than trying to convince Anaheim or some other team to pick up part of Karlsson's salary, because 4 years is a long time to retain salary, and it could stretch out even longer if Karlsson eventually gets bought out. San Jose will do it because they don't have a choice -- they're stuck with that contract and that's what it'll cost them to move it -- but Karlsson's contract is not Anaheim's problem. Teams that want to weaponize cap space usually want to do it for only one or two years. Beyond that, they want to keep their options open in case their rebuild is starting to bear fruit and they need the cap space to sign RFAs or improve the team in other ways.

Well that was the Chicago part, we would get a return for the shedding of salary. You're right we might have to pay Anaheim a premium to take like 1 or 2M off of Karlsson's hit, as well as Granlund/Rutta or whoever, but like you said, they still have to sign some key RFAs.

Maybe they include Terry and we give them an even bigger package. Maybe we swap Jarry for Gibson? There's room to make some creative stuff happen with them. And they're 6M from the floor, they actually need to add salary. Zegras will take most of that but Drysdale doesn't deserve much more than a 1-2M bridge deal.

The other side of it is Petry or someone who is good for the team with trade protection, could they somehow be included?

If we needed to clear like 7M to add Karlsson without adding salary, that about equals Granlund and DeSmith, neither of who have trade protection.

If we moved a player with super high value like Guentzel, filled his spot with Tarasenko or kept Granlund, then we would be able to get a solid return AND Karlsson.

Rutta isn't quite a dump he's still a solid depth D.

Granlund is more of a dump but I do believe in the right circumstance he could be an effective player. He still had 40 plus points last year, and is good for 30-50 assists in a full season.

Altogether I think Kyle knows what he's gotta do here.

But even if we don't get EK, our blue line looks great, right up there with Carolina in pure depth throughout the pairings.

Tarasenko signed a one-year deal with the Senators. He is out of the picture.

Guentzel is entering a contract year. His performance this year will determine his next contract. If he performs well and has a future with the Penguins, move salary elsewhere. (Think Granlund and Rutta as salary moves.)

The 2024-2025 season could provide relief for the Penguins. Carter, DeSmith, and Nedeljkovic will be unrestricted free agents. The salary cap could increase.

Yea Tarasenko is out, I'm about to make a new post with a reformulated situation. I'll link it here once it's up.

https://www.capfriendly.com/forums/thread/750275

Updated Version

Dude nice he must've spun the value for all the pieces we gave up and our futures are generally intact. What a guy. Now sign Dylan Ferguson bro!

Yeah, I think what actually happened turned out even better for the Penguins than what you were proposing. The only negative was that they took on nearly all of Karlsson's cap hit, but unloading more than enough contracts to cover it as part of the same trade, rather than having to make separate deals to pay other teams to take them, was a major coup. (They did have to bring in a third team, but I suspect they did that only because San Jose was on Petry's no-trade list, otherwise San Jose would have taken the package that went to Montreal.) It probably saved them having to give up POJ and other prospects and young roster players.

I agree what ended up happening was better. To be fair, I would have been super down to see Petry on the third pairing locked in with someone else, and generally Rutta is a defensive guy so that would have rounded out our blue line a bit better.

But yeah our futures are good to go and we only gave up one first round pick... which was the bare minimum to get this deal done.

AND we still have POJ which is kinda hilarious that SJ didn't just push for him... like maybe even instead of that 1st rounder. But hey Mike Grier is clearly not a good GM.

The negative of the cap hit kind of just is what it is, but it's something we can work around, with everyone else signed to manageable hits and nobody with crazy ass term clogging stuff up.

Super hyped for this season!

Basically, to get out of all those deals and bring in EK was huge. I personally thought you might have to sweeten the pot with more futures and prospects but MTL was happy with a 2nd and the Hoffman dump. Maybe San Jose loves Hoffman. lol

And yea the fact that they didn't retain more, is def why there weren't more pieces included from our prospect pool and draft capital. I think that's better too bro. Big time DUB from DUBAS here and he won this offseason big time.

Only thing I don't love is the Jarry deal... but hey, maybe we can trade him to WPG for Hellebuyck at the trade deadline lol

Yeah, I was surprised that Dubas gave Jarry the deal he wouldn’t give Campbell last year, especially when so far that appears to have been the right decision. I guess with Jarry being a couple years younger but with more time as a #1 goalie, he seems like less of a risk.

Jarry for Hellebuyck sounds interesting. Jarry is not as good as Hellebuyck, but if Hellebuyck won’t sign an extension with Winnipeg, I think they’d rather trade him for a drop-in replacement than futures. If they think Jarry is worth $5.375M per year, the fact that he’s signed for several years would likely appeal to them if they’re having difficulty convincing players to sign extensions. However, Jarry has a 12-team no-trade clause, so if Winnipeg is on his no-trade list, he would have to agree to the trade.