maybe retain a little more on weber

This trade would not work for Edmonton they need to find a way to fit McDavids contract in next year without add Price and Weber's cap hits

no no no from PIT.

It would have to be Hagelin and a 2nd from pitt for Plekanec at 3 mil retained to make the cap work.

You're forgetting about the 1st that Pittsburgh has to give up just to get them to take Hagelin's cap.

No I’m not. Plekanec himself is a cap dump.

Plekanec is serviceable, Hagelin is not. Therefore, Hagelin requires a 1st to get rid of him.

Habs decline the Oilers trade easely

Plekanec isn’t any more serviceable than Hagelin. They both bring 2 things to the table. Plekanec is a pk guy that’s good on faceoffs, Hagelin is a pk guy that has a ton of speed. If anything, Hagelin is more serviceable because he actually generates offense. Plekanec is a 6 million dollar 4th line Center.

Plekanec has 18 points in 50 games on a bad team.
Hagelin has 14 points in 51 games on a better team.

My point exactly, Plekanec generates offense a lot better than Hagelin. Faceoffs matter, but speed isn't exactly a skill that matters when it comes to point production. Basically, Plekanec has an awful contract yes, but he still has value.

And Plekanec gets more time on ice per game. So he should have more points. Generating offense is about more than just points. It’s about shots. Hagelin generates offense more than Plekanec. Plekanec has a horrible contract. Hagelin is just bad. Pens don’t need a 4th line Center. They need a 3rd line Center.

Why does it always come to this?

I think your both right and wrong at the same time.

Just because Pittsburgh doesn't have the cap space to take on Plekanec, doesn't mean we need to take on another contract just to make it even. We don't HAVE to move him to Pitts if you can't make it work. Plekanec is worth a 2nd all alone to many teams. He doesn't need other players added to the deal. MTL will gladly retain salary if needed to help the other team stay under the cap but taking on Hagelin makes 0.000000000 sense. Plus yeah sure Pitts doesn't have cap space now but they could make other deals to open up space to. Cole to a contender who needs a dman for a pick and boom! 2M+ opened up. Was that so hard? No.

If you can't afford a 2nd for Plekanec at 50%, than there simply is no deal to be made. That's it. Others will pay up that do have the space. It doesn't have to come to MTL begging ol' Pitts to take Pleky off our hands.

For the last time and Im directing this at many (Not all) Pens fans. Plekanec is not a cap dump. Plekanec is still a perfectly useful player. If you are expecting him to score a ton of points, than you'll be dissatisfied. But have him as a 3rd center who can chip in points much like Cullen did last year and play really solid defensively and take away tons of defensive minutes away from Crosby and Malkin? Whats not to like? Yeah ok we all know he isn't worth 6M anymore. That doesn't take away the fact that he is still a decent player.

Bryan Bickell was a cap dump. See the difference? Bickell made 4M and played 25 games while having only 2 points in his last year in Chicago. Does that look like Plekanec type numbers to you? Matt Moulson this year in Buffalo. 5M player playing in the AHL. IF Buffalo wanted to move, even though they don't need to right now, they'd have to move him with something else good just to get a 3rd rounder back for example. That is a cap dump.

Plekanec is simply overpaid.. Understand the difference.

Now the same goes for @Zackdionne9 who is claiming Hagelin is a cap dump. No he's not. Neither player is. Once again read the statement above about Bickell. Cap dumps are players who don't bring anything at all to a team. To the point of them being healthy scratches every game or sent to the AHL. (And usually are expensive).

But back to the main topic of Hagelin vs Plekanec. Apples and Oranges. Hagelin has 1 more year. Plekanec is a UFA. Plekanec has very little impact on any teams books because he'll be off it soon. The actual dollar amount would be like 250,000$ if the Habs retained 50% on the 6M contract. You can't compare Hags to Pleky, they also play two vastly different positions. We all know centers have more value than wingers, that isn't bias or anything.


Finally, What OP is trying to do with his trade is say ok instead of taking this years 2nd rounder 2018, we'll defer to next years 3rd rounder 2019, giving Pitts a chance to potentially be higher in the rankings and for that they'd also get a young prospect like Simon. Whether or not Simon is the guy that could/would be added to this deal is another story but the logic is there. Might just need to change the prospect. Thats' all. I will say though that I see a lot of posters try to pull this off on players who aren't valuable enough to have the option. By trying to take later picks and in later years, they think they can then ask for a premier prospect instead of a mediocre one. I agree this doesn't work and may be applied here to Plekanec. Maybe the best the Habs could hope for is simply the 2nd rounder this year but make no mistake about it, a 2nd rounder is what they'll probably get. Maybe a fringe NHL prospect also similar to Boyle trade last year when TB also got Froese in the deal.