Sharks willing to retain 4, but 3 is preferable. How good has Petterson been? You think we could flip him to Vancouver with all their interest in him?

You are missing the point.

Whether we like it or not; SJ is NOT REBUILDING. I disagree fully with that decision but they are not rebuilding.

Burns is worth keeping - and not losing with 3m of retention unless the Pens overpay. I’m not talking a bad contract swap; SJ as a contending team (that’s their desire), will not move Burns unless they believe they are winning the trade.

So I’m not talking Burns @3mil retained for Pettersson and Poulin, it’s just not reasonable to accept. Burns would be worth his contract if his AAV was 5-6m give or take to a degree but they are not moving him with retention unless you’re giving an arm and a leg. Burns is far more useful then being 3m in dead cap.

Like @Ledge_And_Dairy said, you can’t get SJ to retain and I say if you were going to get them to; you’d literally need to overpay and that is not worth it for the Pens for a player of Burns’ age.

There just no fit for the Sharks/ Burns unless the Pens are coming away looking worse. Which again, is not the direction they should take on a player in the back 9 of his career at a lengthy and expensive AAV even with retention.

Zero chance this trade happens from a San Jose perspective. They are actually adding cap in this trade while they are in a tight cap situation. They aren’t taking on $24 mil over the next 3 seasons to have a higher cap hit and worse team. They don’t need to move Burns that badly and he’s still producing. 45 points in 68 games.

"what do the pens add?"

Probably quite a bit when you consider the Sharks are essentially paying over 8M for Pettersson for the next three seasons unless they manage to dump him too. The point of a Burns trade would be clearing cap, not adding it.