Are they though? Let's do the math.

Karlsson is owed $39M over the next 4 years. San Jose retained 13%, or $5M. They took back 3 players: Hoffman ($5M), Granlund ($11M) and Rutta ($5M). This trade is costing them $26M in cash over the next 4 years.

If they had simply retained 50% on Karlsson, that would have cost them $19.5M over the next 4 years. So this trade is NOT saving them money.

Here's the other thing: what would the return have been if they had offered to retain 50%? I would think it would be significantly higher in terms of picks & prospects.

Yes they do free up more cap space in year 3 and 4 doing it this way, but with the cap set to rise significantly and SJS not poised to come out of their rebuild any time soon, is this really any use to them?

I don't see any way to couch this as a successful manoeuvr by Grier.

Do you really think petry gets traded so soon? He blocked the SJ trade for this long. Just curious as to how Montreal fans think he is gonna be gone before the puck drops for 2024.

I mean 0.5ppg on those abysmal SJS teams isn't exactly terrible. How was his health during that time?

Yes his defense and contract sucks (less sucks now i guess), but he's going to be playing with some of the best in hockey on PIT, just imagine how many points he'll rack up on their powerplay. I wouldn't be surprised if he records another 100pts next season.

Aside from Karlsson's value, I'm more surprised on the fact that PIT didn't have to pay to unload Granlund and Ruuta. That's what makes this trade horrendous for Grier in my opinion.

Year 3 +4 San Jose is still going to be garbage, and the cap limit will be above $90M. Retaining 50% would have given them a better now AND in the long term.

No doubt. But that one season was last season. Tough to say he’s a bad or average player after winning a Norris There is no question about the players going out.

Indeed but the gap between the 80 point season and last year is injury riddled Erik Karlsson. This past season was his first fully healthy season since his last ppg season. He’s also joining the best team of his career. Ottawa was nowhere near playoffs without him and whilst his first year San José team was good, I do think this team is slightly better

So this depends if you think ruuta and Granlund are actively bad and below replacement level or just overpaid. I believe the latter. So now they are getting something for the money they're spending. It's pretty damn hard pill for ownership to swallow to be paying 5.75 million for 4 years for nothing.

Now they're paying 8 mill ish for 2 years for players sho may only be worth 4 million but at least they're contributing.

Maybe. But I'm not sure they're going to get much from either guy even at 50% retained. And that's still costing them cash (both players have 2 years left, so they aren't rentals).

Yeah... but at TDL, they should have a little more value

And SJ's making the cash back anyway via ticket sales/jersey sales etc.

Granlund and Rutta have 2 more years left, they won't be TDL rentals this coming season.

????

Would San Jose's income somehow be lower if they had structured the Karlsson trade differently? This makes no sense at all.

Petry forgot to put Montreal on his no-trade list lmao

Well it all comes down to money really. No team wants to pay Petry 6.25M but now that Pit is on the hook for 25% of it and MTL then can retain another 50% of that, all of a sudden a team who couldn't afford Petry normally can get him for ~2.6m in cap. Which is a major bargain because he is still a decent player. And he only has a certain amount of teams he can be traded to but if the alternative is playing in MTL again, I'm sure he's going to try and be a little more accommodating.

Honestly I think the only reason Hughes made this deal is because he has teams that want him at much discounted rate, which he can now offer. I highly highly doubt Petry plays a game in MTL this year. The guy wanted out to begin withs so im sure the idea is move him where he wants to go as soon as possible.

Everyone saying that SJ lost this are complete idiots. In 2-3 years you'll all be saying wow look how young and good SJ is. All the moves they’ve made over the past 4 seasons have been for a reason. They have 3-4 grade A prospects in the pipeline and 5-6 B+ guys who will be coming up around the same time to fill out those bottom 6 roles. Very good depth in the system.

Every 10-15 years we see a flip in the Standings with teams. SJS, CBJ, CHI, ANA, BUF are all about to be very good very soon. While TBL, BOS, VGK, PIT, FLA, etc will start to fall.

Karlsson better workout there otherwise Montreal comes out on top

The trades are fair deals for the Penguins and Sharks. They addressed needs and positions without losing much.

The Canadiens have players and prospects to sort through. DeSmith will provide depth as a secondary goaltender. Petry did not work in the Penguins system. He returns to a familiar Canadiens system. The Canadiens will need to find a post-Petry answer.

So a lot of moving parts here in organizations I'm less familiar with, so trying to see if I follow.

So Montreal essentially got
DeSmith (solid but not special backup). Likely quite low but positive value
What appears like a nothing prospect in legare?
And a 2025 second
Got to dump one year of Hoffman (pp specialist with skill there but otherwise pretty crappy)

In exchange for trading a depth piece with low value (Pitlick) and taking back a bad contract but retained in Petry, but 2 years vs Hoffman's 1 year

Pitts
Good:
Traded/dumped ruuta (neutral to mildly bad value)
Traded/dumped Granlund. Value controversial as his offense isn't bad, but analytics people think he's just awful. 2 years
Got a nothing prospect
Got a third
Got the mildly retained super star!!! (Karlsson)
Got a decent depth player (Pitlick)
Got out of most of Petry for 2 years

Paid:
2024 protected first
2025 second
Retention on Petry for two years
A solid backup but minimal value as they had 3 goalies

Sneaky bad:
By trading bad contracts instead of having sj retain more they will have Karlsson at 9.5 in years 3 and 4 when he's likely to be at his worst

San Jose
Cost
Paid karlsson
Retention on Karlsson (low but 4 years)
Took three dumps (ruuta and Granlund 2 years, Hoffman one).
A 3rd

Got:
A protected first
Got out of the majority of karlsson's contract

I think this is overall LIKELY* fair and people were way over valuing Karlsson/underappreciating the issues of trading his contract when they were discussing the returns he'd get

I think the clincher here if it was fair for everyone or if Montreal rocked it is what one thinks of Petry. He was a great defenseman a couple years ago. I haven't watched him much recently but he certainly has taken a lot of hate. So if he does truly suck it's fair. If he's still an okay second pair defenseman they did quite well

Your numbers are wildly inaccurate. Rutta is $5M, Granlund is $11M. That's $17M not including Hoffman or the retention (another $10M).

Rutta is below replacement level, Granlund isn't. But again, it's unfathomable that they couldn't have done better simply by retaining 50%.

Petry is still playing over 20 minutes and producing, which he kind of has to at $6M. Not good value, but not necessarily bad either.
At $3M or less though? There's still value there and even room for regression without being a negative asset. Can still play top 4, but you can plant him on your 3rd pair for good depth and have someone ready to step in if necessary. If you acquire him as top 4, he's not hurting you much at only 2 years of term if he falls off unless he ends up riding the pine.

If that's the case Montreal absolutely kicked ass

Your numbers are wildly inaccurate. Rutta is $5M, Granlund is $11M. That's $17M not including Hoffman or the retention (another $10M).

Rutta is below replacement level, Granlund isn't. But again, it's unfathomable that they couldn't have done better simply by retaining 50%.

Which leaves plenty of room for them to boost their stats while playing 1st or 2nd line caliber minutes and trade them next year



SJ will make income via new player arrivals, that's how it is with other fanbases too... people want the new guy's jersey

Potentially, if they retained 50% on Karlson's contract and retained on Rem Pitlick's contract (as an e.g., not saying it's something SJ would do) and got draft picks instead, there's no new player to get excited about... and no New Jersey to sell at the team store/online...