Lol, Boro is bad, but he's at least our bad player and he's not on the least defensible contract in the league. Not a chance any team wants anything to do with that stinker of a contract

I think of "cap pickle" different than you. Teams have no hold of their UFAs so if they walk so be it. Maybe there isn't enough cap. Cap problems happen when there to much held in bad contracts.
That Kessel trade, seem like a lot of for Carolina to give up for one year of Kessel.

It was clearly a salary dump on PIT's part. I explained that they were cap constrained so I moved Kessel and Johnson to make room. Of course no one cares for Boro, he was just a depth D that OTT would send the other way around (contract wise). 1 year 1M for a 7th D is acceptable for the Pens. Anyway, he clearly wasn't an important part in that scenario, so if that's the only part that you're stuck on, it means I must have done a good job.

It's actually 2 years of Kessel (he's under contract for another 4 years). If he plays like he did in the last few seasons for the next two years, he'll still be worth all that for sure (imo). Like I said, they might let Brassard or Schultz walk, but they'll need replacements for either one of them...that's the hard part.

Anyway, I was just trying to prove that things aren't looking up in the next few years (2-3) for PIT. Don't you agree?

Yea, I'll agree. Pens still have great high end players, but their bottom 2/3 of the lineup is no better than some other teams. You can win one playoff round like that, but then it's a toss up in round two, and another toss up in round three. Math just might be against Pens going to the Finals again with this group though they still rank at least fourth best overall in the Conference.

There are no Bellerive, Hallander on the roster, one of these guys could have been a 3c with an option to be a TOP6 winger. I think Blueger's got a good chance to crack in the team this season and I think DiPauli is also higher on the depth chart than Dea in this regard. Overall they could have a good TOP6 without Brassard or someone like Gagner.

I think Addison is the one offensive RHD to replace Shultz by that time. So no need to trade for Bean, and I do not like much Zykov either as this team could have enough offensive talent. I'd narrow the list of Kessel trading partners to FLA, ARI, MIN teams, mb VGK but would prefer to do that trade sooner and receive some quality roster player than later and end up with futures/prospect.