What a brutal trade

The first will probably be between 11 and 15. So it isn’t too bad

I bet anything that San Jose ownership told Grier they wanted out of the contract for as little financial pain as possible. Which is something I've been telling people on this site for months now. Ultimately NHL front offices answer to the organization ownership. People paying the bills and people watching the games don't always have the same objectives.

Gotta think long term. Sharks only retain 6 mil on EK65 next 4 years. That's a win Grier can sell to the owner.

Sure we get hosed with the cap dumps. But Hoffman has 1 year left. Granny has 2. I don't know if he can be flipped at half retained or maybe he gets bought out next June? Rutta can likely be flipped at the trade deadline.

We're going to be bad. We know this. But we'll be getting another high draft pick plus the Pens pick next June.

If you want to believe we lost the trade for now then I'm ok with that. But this was a trade made for the future. I believe ownership was heavily involved in the retention.

My final verdict...

Pens win now
Habs win both now and the future
Sharks win in the future

Sharks are similar to Detroit. They'll have place holders until their young studs replace them. Red Wings just have better place holders than we do so they can compete right now while we dwell at the bottom of the standings.

Stack those lottery picks baby!

If San Jose would have been willing to take half of the salary retain would have been lot better. But it make sense that front office wouldn’t want to have over 20 millions burried money.

Think about being Hertl