One trade for now and future

I don’t think Arizona accepts

Arizona 100% declines, Pittsburgh doesn't have the pieces that Bill Armstrong would want for Jakob Chychrun.

I think you need to throw more sweetening in there to get Arizona to bite. Zucker and Kessel are analogous in this trade as older wingers with high AAVs - arguably, Arizona gets a worse asset considering Zucker has more term (even at a lower AAV, Zucker's salary is higher this year + he's got another year of term at $5.5AAV/$5.2 actual cash.) With Matheson, I get that he becomes expendable once Chychrun shows up, but I think you'd be better off flipping him (or one of the other LD making $4M+) somewhere else instead of watering down your return here. Matheson is 28 and signed for 4 more years after this one at $4.875M, he's not a guy that moves the needle for Arizona in terms of what they're looking for.

I think the biggest issue is that Arizona is trading guys because they're trying to be cheap as hell while still being cap compliant, and this goes against that. There are plenty of Zucker-like contracts that the Coyotes can take on with picks attached instead, while getting a Poulin+1+2++ package for Chychurn - alone. Adding Crouse means you'd have to add more.

The coyotes need players with term. No one wants to play there lol. Zucker isn’t a cap dump either. Plus Arizona needs to get to the cap floor. He’s also a good trade candidate at next years deadline. Zucker is definitely a better asset than Kessel. This isn’t exactly Kessel from 5-6 years ago

Yeah but they can get there in much better ways than this.

Kessel at 50% retention gets them a a 3rd this year.

There are plenty of teams that will be looking to dump a contract like Zucker's (in that $4-6M AAV range) that will attach a 2nd round pick to it.

Kapanen comes in at $3.2M this year and will probably cost about the same next year; I could see Arizona working a deal that's Lawson Crouse for Kapanen+a pick or prospect.

So what you're left with is Chychrun for Matheson/Poulin/1/2/3. Matheson's contract has value but I think Arizona would rather sign veterans on shorter, higher AAV contracts. Matheson from ages 29-33 at $4.875M doesn't really fit Arizona's timeline, so I can't see them counting him as a hugely valuable asset for the Coyotes. Poulin & the picks are fine but I just see another team offering a similar prospect & 2 1sts and outbidding this deal easily.