What would the first line be when Rust returns?

Why in the hell would a selling team be taking a rental unless only to balance the cap hits?

Dubas Flips DeBrusk at 2M?

Could get a 2nd +

we still have the jake shakes either way

My guess is they don’t view him as a rental and we have to see what else is in the deal.

That's what scares me. Half ass efforts of not committing to rebuilds results in disastrous outcomes. PIT has zero business getting rentals or extending anyone right now. Especially not 27 year old JAGs.

Was about to say this if someone didn’t.

Couple things.

1. A rebuild with Crosby is NOT a thing. if DeBrusk is with your centers, I fully expect him to be what he was last year and his 200 foot game would be a massive loss for most teams. I do view his shot percentage to be more of anomaly than a long term trend

2. We need to see what’s in the deal. In privately hoping that Lysell isn’t it, so he can replace DeBrusk … but I’ll be stunned if that is the case. Lindholm hasn’t been that good.

Rakell-Sid-Rust

Would have to imagine Smith gets moved in the coming days as well so the 2nd and 3rd lines will look different.

Vancouver in my best guess, won’t get a haul for Lindholm from Boston. I’d be guessing Vancouver would get mostly draft picks for him. No prospects to really eye from Boston.

that is one poor return.

everyone knows these 3 can possibly have a 3 way trade, nothing new here.

What is even the point of this

Lysell, Poitras, and Lohrei are three potential NHL top 2 line players. My guess is Lysell might be made available and his performance at the AHL this year definitely shows a lot of upside.

They have some interesting developmental prospects outside of that, but I am hoping it’s a first and none of those three. I don’t view it as realistic, but would be ecstatic if he wasn’t involved.

I personally don’t think Lysell, Poitras, and Lohrei will be traded for anyone. If they get moved it’ll have to be for the right player.

1. It will be a rebuild. Just like most rebuilds, it happens because the team is perpetually in the bottom 10 even without trying to be. That's where they are headed. They're bottom 10 in the league at this very moment. And will likely be worse next year as the core average age is 36.
2. Unless DeBrusk is just getting moved for cap reasons, I don't want him at all. He's a fine player in the middle 6, but a 27 year old middle six rental has no place on this PIT team. They can sign him as a UFA in the offseason. Lindholm has been horrifically overrated for years. I said it then, I said it over the summer when Calgary offered that ludicrous extension, and I am not surprised at all he is playing like a 3rd liner in Vancouver.

The Lindholm trade is kind of funny.
VAN fans on here screaming about what will never happen, what is not available.
JR paid what he needed to get Lindholm out bidding everyone else. Now he didn't work out and he will be moved, VAN probably swallowing the cost a bit, and JR will go right back to work paying for the next guy to win a cup. This is what JR does. Wheels and deals till there is nothing left to wheel and deal. In the end you hope he lands a few and wins a cup. If he doesn't well you are out of draft picks and your prospect pool is now on other teams.

VAN is gonna pay up to get Jake is my guess. Because as the Lindholm trade shows, he'll move whatever it takes to get who he wants.

Rutherford made some awful moves (Jack Johnson!!!). But I always respected his dedication. If he were still the GM in Pittsburgh, he never in a million years would have allowed the entire coaching staff to stay through the year and destroy the season with the PP. That would be at least Reirden, if not Sullivan, leaving many months ago.

Oh I agree it was a mistake to chase Rutherford out. Not that he didn't make mistakes. But I think his biggest was his faith in Sully.
He listened to sully instead of Cole, Kessel and god knows who else Sully chased out the door.
Sully lost the room long ago and needs to go.
I sure know one thing, he wouldn't have done the horrible crap Hextall did to PIT. That Marino trade set this team back and that's just the 1st dumb decision.

Problem is Dubas isn't the guy to fix it. But at least he'll get value out of Jake in trading him.

I'm concerned about it. Should have taken futures in the form of draft picks. I don't want NHL ready prospects. They'll be mediocre quality.

we'll see

Give me players that have shown they can play at the AHL level. The jump to that level kills a ton of prospects every year. Its just more data

The problem at the time in 2018 was trading for Derick Brassard. The team didn’t have a need for him, it was to try and put us over the top but that backfired big time as Brassard just didn’t seem to want to win for some reason and played his worst hockey possible. He played with no heart and it was like the second he was traded out of Pittsburgh he started playing better. The thing that pissed me off the most was him just pissing away every game. He even played a good amount of games with Geno and pissed that away.
Unfortunately for Phil Kessel, Geno got tired of playing with him. Behind the scenes I think they got in to it a lot but Kessel wanted to stay on a line with Geno. A choice had to be made and it was Kessel’s time to go sadly.
Maybe if we just gave Rutherford more time he would not be seeing the ship sinking. Because the winning part to the shortened season became possible because of JR. He wanted to see the team reborn with the speed identity. Acquired Tanev, Kapanen, Matheson, McCann, ERod, Zucker. The growth of Blueger, ZAR, and Marino in our own system. Literally Hextall ruined all of that 😂. But I’d rather not stay in the past with all that.

Geno and Kessel never got into anything, matter of fact they still share photos of them fishing together in FL.

Geno didn't want in the middle of Sully and Kessel. He even stated that.
Sully wanted people to play "his way" which was dumb as hell and Kessel refused. Mainly because Kessel knew what the hell he was doing.
Notice how the PP absolutely died the day Kessel walked out.
The only reason it worked was because Kessel refused to play "the right way."
Not that there weren't parts of Kessels game that were flawed, there were. He was defensively not great. But he more than made up for all of that.
It was the same with Cole. Cole refused to play "the right way" aka soft. Yeah Cole took the penalty.... he was also the guy who would put people into the wall for being an ass.
Sully couldn't put up with it, and off Cole went.
Fact is Sully chased guys out. People can deny that but it's true. As for Brassard, I think him and Smith, and aa whole list of others are probably very telling.
You get traded to a team, you are there for a limited time, and here is the coach who's well, a prick. How hard you going to play?
Even the team that is there now is tired of listening to him. That part is clear. He's lost the room years ago. How much worse do they not have to care before he gets run out.
I'm pretty sure a 37 year old Malkin who is a future hall of famer could give a crap about what Sully has to say at this point.
They really need a more player reasonable coach who can give them useful help at this point in breaking down the other team. Not someone telling them "the right way" to play.

And yet Kessel and Cole never wanted to leave Pittsburgh and at the end of the day they’d put differences aside to win games. They know Sully is a good coach and still had good relationship with him despite any kind of conflicts that had happened. The power play had one decent season after Phil though. When Ian Cole was traded it was due to the team really wanting to get better which backfired big time. When Phil was traded it was because the team needed change. But unfortunately Phil only wanted to be in Arizona cause of Tocchet and the return for him was gonna be garbage. Let’s not forget they were heavily out skated and out played by the Islanders when they were swept. They barely put up a fight. 2020 was a year everyone forgot I feel like. 2021 Pittsburgh put up a hell of a fight against the Isles and were playing Sully playoff hockey except for Jarry. 2022 Pittsburgh lost Sid, Rakell, Dumo, Jarry(improved from year before), and DeSmith to injuries and before Sid getting hurt were well on their way to beating the Rangers. Last year and this year are just the consequences of having Hextall as a GM.

the power play immediately tanked after Kessel left, how can you deny that. It went from top 5 to middle of the pack over night. It then got worse from there as other teams realized how bad they were.
They were a team built off the power play. When the Power play went everything went. There was no reason not to commit a penalty and take liberties on players... and teams did.
What were they going to do, go on the power play and not score? Teams instantly played the penguins different when the power play died. It went from don't get suck on the wrong end of an almost 40% powerplay to they can barely score who cares.
It's hard to say this is the result of just Hextal. You are looking at blown opportunities in the past well past what it is currently. That series against NYI they abused the penguins, because there was no penalty for doing so. The year Sully chased Cole out he killed the defense. He chased out a guy who was pulling 2nd pairing minutes along with PK and replaced him with garbage.
Those things really hurt this teams chances when there was a window. It was not about "getting better" it was about Sully not being able to get along with players are recognizing that what players were doing needed to be done. Someone in PIT had to be that guy and Cole was it. Then they cried for years about pushback afterwards....
There is a printed history of Sully and his issues with Cole prior to the trade.

No matter how you flip it, this team does not improve under him. He is the main lynch pin that needs to be pulled to save whatever is left. If they don't pull him, they will never fix the problem, only pass blame around.