edit: nevermind I read the whole thing wrong.

I think if Detroit traded Namestinkov for "Future Considerations" with the agreement that, sometime in June, Pittsburgh would send a 3rd *or* Pettersson, I think it would be acceptable. I'm less sure if it would be okay if they traded for the 3rd in March with the implicit agreement that they'd be sending it back after the season.

The further issue to me, though, is that I don't think Marcus Pettersson's worth is equal to a 3rd. Put it this way - if you were offered Pettersson for a 3rd straight up, would you take it? I think most GMs would be happy to get a 25 year old LD who drives play to the extent that he does.

I don't see why it wouldn't be.

"If I was offered Pettersson?"
and
"If I was offered Pettersson by a GM that is in cap trouble and can't afford to say no to my offer?"
are two very different questions that would give you two very different answers.

The situation on the ground is that it's the second of the two scenarios that is at play here. Just as a fence won't pay you market value for what you bring him and a loan shark won't give you the same interest rate as the banks a GM will offer you a lower return if a team is desperate to shed salary.

A 3rd round pick for Pettersson during the offseason is a reasonable price considering the situation PIT is in and how many teams can both afford his cap cost and have a need for him.

I'm not sure where you're getting the idea that the Penguins are in cap trouble next season? While they have holes they need to fill, they are going to have nearly $30M in cap space to fill those holes. And even if it gets to the point where they need to move someone, I'd have to think they'd look at moving a guy like Brian Dumoulin first - he's older, has a longer track record of playoff success, has an almost identical cap hit to Pettersson ($4.1M vs. $4.025M), and has less term, making him an easier fit for more teams around the league (also making it easier for the Penguins to eat a little salary if it makes the trade easier.) Acting like Pettersson is a cap dump is a real weird track to take.

According to this site PIT have $29 million to spend next season but are 11 players short of a full roster. Several of the players that need to be resigned are expensive.

I rounded up to $30M based on the rumor that they're going to give a small bump to the cap this summer, raising it to $82.5M.

It's hard to tell what the Penguins do next season, and I'd defer more to the Pens fans on this site, but my read is that if they DO re-sign Malkin & Letang it's probably for a similar cap hit. Rust is probably gone because he's going to get offered more money elsewhere; Kapanen and his $3.2M are probably getting traded or being allowed to walk because of his lack of production. Maybe Evan Rodrigues gets a bump up because of his early season play? The rest of the guys are bottom 6/bottom pair guys that they can promote from within/find decent UFAs for similar costs.

Point is, I think that they aren't going to be in a cap crunch next season. Even if you pencil in Malkin & Letang coming back for $18M combined(higher than I think they will), that still gives them $12M to fill out their bottom 6, get a 7th D, and sign a backup goalie. Gotta assume 1-2 guys on ELCs come up, meaning you probably can average about $1.75-2M per player and fill out the roster without going over the cap.

Lastly, even if they splurge somewhere and need to move a guy, I'd count Brian Dumoulin, Jason Zucker, and Mike Matheson as guys that potentially get moved before they get to Pettersson. Again, put yourself in Ron Hextall's place - if you're going to just try and offload a guy for cap purposes, who do you look at first - the over-30 guys with only a year of term left, or the 25 year old signed for 3 more seasons?

If you check my other posts you'll find that I've said several times "either Pettersson or Matheson". This ACGM and the post I was replying to only concerned Pettersson which is why I didn't mention Matheson here as well. Detroit would actually be equally interested in both of them, they need both an offensive LD that can QB the 2PP as well as a rock solid defensive LD. Yzerman would probably price them similar too with the age and contract of Matheson being compensated by the PP capabilities and scoring.

There have been over a hundred of ACGMs here the last month sending Pettersson to Detroit so I'm taking that as PIT fans rather lose him than Matheson but for Detroit it wouldn't really matter which one. There's also Schmidt in WPG that is looking to be available as well as several options in FA and that also factors in when making a decision on how much to offer in a trade. It is very much a buyers market this season.

I'm not familiar enough wit the prospect pipeline in PIT but isn't there a couple of LD that are losing their waiver exemption this summer? If you have players you can't send down without losing them for nothing then you need to make room for them on the roster if they're good enough to keep.

I thought about that after posting it would just be 2 separate trades. Right now I'd give up a 3rd for Petterson with player like Edvinsson and Wallinder in the system it might be beneficial to have an older Swedish defenseman. Plus Detroit has only 1 NHL defenseman on the roster and that is Oesterle.