Penguins accept and never look back

These are bad gambles. Carter and Hoffman both have term and we are already out of cap space for next season so dumping them will cost assets. Plus Ruzicka os already better and making less than league min next year

Carter is cooked. You do not want that.

So these Trades are based on surrounding Huberdeau with Familiarity & Haooiness, appeasing Sutter and bringing in Positional Mentorship for the upcoming Prospects.

Drouin is good friends with Huberdeau and would be an Amazing Mentor for Young Jakob Pelletier. Drouin won't score much, but he's still Young at 27-28, Big, Fast and more importantly has Excellent Hockey IQ, Vision, Passing and Play Making Ability which would be good for our Right Shot Snipers in Lindholm & Toffoli as well as on the Power Play. He has 10 Assists in his last 10 Games Played

Hoffman is a bit of a ? as to whether any of his antics will be bad for the locker room, but he brings some Grit and an Edge to his Game, has had previous Success with Huberdeau. The Guy can still score and coming on at $2.25 is a steal. Even if we had to dump him, it wouldn't be that hard, especially if we retained another 50% bringing his Cap Hit down to $1.125mil, but I'm confident he'll produce 0.67PPG+. He has 8 Points in his last 10 Games Played and would be Excellent for our Struggling Power Play as well. The best alternative is Anthony Duclair, but he's $750k more and will cost significantly more to acquire, as will Max Domi or Ivan Barbashev

Ruzicka by comparison has 0 Points and is -4 in his last 10 Games... Sutter doesn't trust him and in order to get a deal for both Drouin & Hoffman, I figured we would need to provide something enticing. Maybe a couple Picks or Prospects would be better, but with Pelletier & Duehr and both Zary & Coronato coming up soon, Ruzicka is Trade Bait we can probably afford to give up. I don't see our Top-3 Centres in Lindholm, Kadri or Backlund going anywhere's any time soon either

Centre is the most important Forward Position and we haven't found our 4C yet. Sutter Loves and Trusts Jeff Carter, who would also be reunited with Lewis & Toffoli. He's older, so I suggest load management = playing him 8-12 mins per night and not every night. He would be an Excellent Mentor for and would split time with Matthew Coronato, Connor Zary, Walker Duehr, Ben Jones and Cole Schwindt (Ruzicka too if he doesn't go to MTL). We definitely need a guy who can win Faceoffs and that combined with his Right Shot would be Great for our Power Play as well. Will Carter waive his NMC, I don't know, but given his current situations in PIT, their need/want for more Bottom-6 Grit and the fact PIT Fan's are willing to give Carter for Free, why not? If Lucic is gone, he can't be played, right!? It's like a Money Ball move

Any of these 4 guys would likely get moved out this off-season: Hoffman, Toffoli, Kylington, Tanev or Hanifin. The way I see it is this year is a settle in year for Huberdeau, Kadri & Weegar and that our Young Prospects just aren't ready for regular NHL Duties yet, so see what these moves do for us and re-tool in the off-season. We have Poirier coming along nicely, maybe Kylington will be back next season and there's a ton of LD's coming available, like Ryan Graves and Hanifin will fetch us Premium Assets, so why not move him? If not, Tanev is getting old and has always been injury prone. When he's healthy, he's amazing, but we can't rely or depend on him, so if he will return Assets, he can go and we'll move Weegar to RD. If Toffoli will bring much better assets than Tanev and we feel Dube, Coronato and Hoffman can replace Toff's production, we move Toffoli instead.

We have options, but I don't think we should give up many Draft Picks this TDL. Mid-to-Late Picks and B/C Prospects who will be jumped on the Depth Chart like Ruzicka, Mackey, MEP, Pospisil, Nikolayev, Feuk, Chechelev and Jack Beck are what I would recommend moving instead if possible

Carter's still Big at 6'3 220lbs, Killing Penalties, Blocking Shots, Dishing Out 1.5-2 Hits Per Game and Winning 60% of his Face Offs, so with reduced minutes, he'd be an ideal 4C/RW and Amazing Mentor for CGY's Young Prospects

And he can still Produce Offensively and Plays even better come Playoff time, so although he'd be an expensive 4C, I think he's worth the gamble. Perhaps we could pay a 3rd Team to retain 50% on him...

If he would waive I would do this trade in a heartbeat.