Stop Hextalling and make a move

A retained Henrique requires a 1st. I normally say a 2nd and a blue chip prospect would also work, but having perused the Pens farm system I don't see a suitable piece at a position of need.

The Blues are not taking McGinn, dude.

You have the more level headed ACGMs on here compared to most Pens fans. Everytime I get on here and create a new ACGM to play around with, the glaring need always comes down to the bottom-six/3C which is what you've done here 👍.

Dumoulin seems to be coming around to a more competent level of play and you can't discount his familiarity with Letang. This has been DeSmith's worst season as the back up, but it looks like he responded to management's recent criticism (W vs. Colorado) and he always has stronger play this time of year. With only so much wiggle room, this is why I think Hextall has to prioritize 3C rather than a top-four LHD or back up goaltender.

Henrique, O'Reilly and Acciari and the names that always pop in my head (which isn't much) think Carolina is going to go after O'Reilly with their LTIR cap space. I'm curious, have there been any other 3C options that come to mind for you besides the ones I mentioned?

What if Anaheim only retains between 8-18% of Henrique's contract? I'm not so sure that automatically warrants a 1st round pick now like 40-50% would.

It really depends on what the other pieces are. There's a minimum cost involved in both occupying a retention slot for this and next year, as well as shipping out our leading goal scorer. Failing to meet that threshold and Rico is more valuable to keep around until next TDL and look at moving him then.

While a lot of the "it's a 1st or a non starter" position is from assumed heavy retention, he is one of our most valuable trade pieces (factoring in this year and next years pending UFAs). While he would be your 3c, he's our 1LW, and not being a pending UFA, were under no pressure to move him, so the offer has to be enough to convince us to let him go, as opposed to "it's the best we can get, and we have to move him"

The situation Anaheim is in is that we are critically short at LW, specifically with top 6 capability. Moving Rico early means we have to patch that hole next season at 1LW, and the UFA market for LW is crap (Bunting and Kerfoot are in the top 5 avaliable, fine players, but not replacing Rico)

So if you are Anaheim, you need either a top 6 potential prospect at LW coming back, or most/all of the pieces to go and get that player, otherwise it's more valuable to us to hang onto Rico, especially since his cap hit is of no concern to us through the end of his contract.