"Pettersson has a Calder trophy. Hughes had 7 goals and 21 points as a rookie."

If the stats show the last three years of Hughes vs last three years of Pettersson, Pettersson would have the advantage. Hughes would have been 18, 19, 20 while Pettersson was 21, 22, 23. Significant difference.

You're right, I wouldn't trade Hughes for Pettersson. Hughes is signed long term, has more potential, and is very close to Pettersson in center rankings already despite being two years younger

It includes Hughes' first year of which he absolutely sucked. Would be an unfair representation of him compared to the player he's today.

Compare apples to apples, not apples to bananas. You can compare Hughes first three years to Kakko or Dach, not Pettersson.

I mean today Hughes is a very good player no denying that but a 49 game sample size is a bit questionable don’t you think?

What am I supposed to do to compare them then? Not my fault they aren’t the same age. Guess we can’t compare any player in the league unless they are the same age because “well this player was drafted in this year and their rookie year was in a different year than that player”

How do your propose we fairly compare the two players?

Use the stats from 2020-21 onwards. Fairly similar ice time and roles between the two.

Well Pettersson missed over half of the 2020 season though due to injury. Hughes also missed a lot of games this season. Not the greatest comparison for full season

Honestly fellas it does not matter because at the end of the day both players wake up every morning and wish they were even half the center Casey Cizikas is

You’re right. I guess Hughes is the better player though because Pettersson had the honour of playing alongside him in his rookie season.

So Kakko and Hughes are apples to apples?

They have yet to played a full year as equals. Gotta use what we have.

Well what we have is Hughes being better than Pettersson for 49 games. God forbid you mention anything other than those 49 games.

Not at all, Hughes didn’t play against men pre-draft

Slafkovsky is gonna go 27-30 in his 80 games and then a point per game the next year to make it a very hard choice. Slafkovsky is the next Jagr. I love making bold calls about players before they have even played an NHL game.

The only thing Pettersson and Hughes have in common is their injury proneness

Yep that seems to be a Vancouver Canucks thing.

Martin Necas re-signed for 2 years, $3 million AAV. Canes are going to have to trade somebody (Gardiner?) prior to the start of the year to become cap compliant.

After Necas’ 2 year 3M Cap Hit deal, he’ll be an RFA with arbitration rights, a 3.5M Qualifying Offer, and 2 years from UFA eligibility https://t.co/lXJVAeGrBa https://t.co/Rx4iawsGtm

— PuckPedia (@PuckPedia) August 9, 2022

Nemec will make the team for <9 games. Gonna need that slide year.

Walsh is ready though. Either for 3LD or 3RD depending on what they do with Severson.

That’s a very good cap hit

He is talking about me.

In this thread. The offer was Jack Hughes for Podkolzin, Hoglander and picks. It turned into a debate about who has a better trajectory: Hughes or Podkolzin.

I stand by my every word.

I'll throw in my worthless two cents over here: Devils decline that deal. Hughes' ceiling is just too good-even for such a large haul. I feel like Podkolzin and Hoglander can max at solid 2nd liners/very good 3rd liners, but Hughes' potential is true #1C (he's obviously not there yet, 49 games is not a big enough sample).

EDIT: BTW, I also see why the Canucks would decline this deal-that's a lot of picks and 2 very promising players (albeit with not-nearly-as-high ceilings as Hughes) to give up for one player whose sole special season consisted of 49 games. I'd personally pull the trigger and do it (since I think Hughes will wind up being worth it), but I could completely understand why both VAN and NJD would say no.

Koivula - Kadri- Holmstrom is going to be a great line in Bridgeport in a few years

Swedish SHL team has offered former San Jose Shark winger Jonathan Dahlen a Monster contract, interesting to see if he takes it or if he is willing to wait for an NHL team to give him an offer.

— Patrik Petrin (@PatrikPetrin) August 7, 2022

The team is Skelleftea although he has been very loyal to Timra. Gotta think at 25 if he goes back that will be it for his NHL career.

Vancouver doesn’t really need a 1C when we have Pettersson and Miller anyway

It simply doesn’t make sense to give up 2 top 6 wingers, two first round picks, and a second round pick for a 49 game sample size.

That debate only started because you said those are middling pieces. If you simply just said Hughes is untouchable, not getting traded, it could’ve just ended there