Joined: Jul. 2021
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This is really two separate trades that were combined into one so Philadelphia wouldn’t have to burn one of their salary retention slots.
The first trade is Provorov from Philadelphia to Columbus with $2M retained for a 1st and a 2nd. This seems like fair value for Provorov given that he’s still pretty young and has two years left on his contract, but is overpaid at $6.75M cap hit. It makes sense for Philadelphia if they’ve decided to rebuild or even if they’ve just decided to move on from him. I don’t think Columbus wants to rebuild after spending all that money on Gaudreau, so it’s a fair price for a player who probably makes them better.
The other trade is pretty much a straight cap dump – LA giving Walker, a prospect and a 2nd to Philly for two minor leaguers to dump $3M of Petersen’s cap hit. (LA could have retained on Petersen instead of Provorov – it makes no difference to them because both players have 2 years left on their contracts – so this didn’t need to be part of a 3-way trade.) LA can do better things with that cap hit, but the price seems a little high given that he was in the minors, which reduces what they save to less than $2M. They save more by including Walker, but I don’t think he’s overpaid enough to call him a dump, and whether he actually saves them anything will depend on how they replace him. The fact that Philadelphia is taking a cap dump looks like a rebuild move, but Walker will play for them (though he could be flipped at the deadline if they don’t extend him, possibly for a 3rd), and their scouts may think that Petersen still has a chance to regain some of his old form with a change of scenery.
It'll be interesting to see what these teams do next. Is this the start of a housecleaning in Philadelphia? Will Columbus make more short-term additions? How will LA spend their cap space?