Finishing Up

Why would you get rid of Lovejoy. Just because he was an awful return for Despres considering it was a 1-for-1 trade, doesn't mean that he's not valuable.
1.1M for a good 3rd pairing defenseman with some experience (much needed considering our defense core is so young) is an excellent contract.
He's nothing too special but is reliable, he plays a safe game, and to ship him out when just getting rid of Scuds would do the trick.

If you deadset on shipping out a player along with Scuderi, look at a position were not in need of right now: Forward. Kunitz came off a bad season and seems to be the odd man out of the Top6. His cap hit seems a bit too high for a 3rd liner but knowing that he's played well in the past, he could warrant a pretty good return (i.e. a decent prospect and a pick, or a young-ish defenseman that could round out the defense core. At the beginning of the offseason, I was hesitant about shipping out Kunitz, but with the additions of Fehr and Bonino, it seems like he could be the next to leave.

Perron - Crosby - Hornqvist
Plotnikov? - Malkin - Kessel
Bennett - Bonino - Fehr
Wilson - Sheary - Dupuis ???????????????????

Lovejoy sucks, there's no way around that. And yes, in this scenario moving him is needed to let Dumoulin play otherwise the scrub would be blocking him. That extra million or so gives us some cap space as to not have to play 5 Dmen if there's injuries.

You can't go and get forward depth and then say "hey we don't need this depth let's use that to trade for a dman" that's counterproductive. He is the odd man out of the top six but that's amazing forward depth to have pushed your top line wingers down to the third in a matter of two years which is what they were planning to do with those contracts in the first place. His cap hit is big for a third line winger but so is Dupuis' who hasn't really played the last two years so Kunitz should get the same BOTD that he does. Plus we nkow those cap hits will come off the books as we're giving our young D raises in a couple years and it'll work out. We would be selling Kunitz at his lowest value as well when stats show he was doing just fine before injury give him another chance. The extra additions are addressing forward depth something that is acheived along with Kunitz not to replace him as they're both centers which leads into your lineup here...

Top six is fine I would swap RWs but yes Plotnikov should be penciled in there we brought him in the play with Malkin I have no idea why so many place him on the fourth line. Fehr can/will/did play RW but I believe him and Bonino will be bottom 6 centers and whoever gets third line duty will be determined in camp. Bennett (who fucking sucks) over Duper for third line? hahahaha And Sheary is a LW and I would place him on 4LW and send down Wilson, we want four scoring lines.

I'm with Choino, Lovejoy is terrible, and is not worth 1.1m, especially on a cap strapped team like the Pens. Plus Rutherford said he wanted to get younger and Lovejoy will only be a 7th man if the Pens get someone to play the 2nd line instead of Cole. Kunitz/Bonino/Fehr or Dupuis is a beastly 3rd line. Even if it is expensive, it will produce. I don't think Bonino will be okay with a 4th line center role though. He was basically a 2nd line center in Vancouver. I think when it comes down to it Dupuis and Plotnikov will be fighting for top 9 spots as long as there are no injuries. I see a lot of line mixing this season, because the Pens now have the depth to do so. This is a solid lineup and should be exciting to see what happens!