I still don't understand why people want to trade Kessel. He should play with Malkin. He'd be a 30+ goal scorer

A. Fair for who? The Flyers? (Because it is so bad for Pittsburgh that the Flyers win this trade)

2. Why in the world would Pittsburgh do this deal right now? How does it help? What does it fix? (They wouldn't, it doesn't, nothing)

III. Even if you added 1sts to the Edmonton give (note, I said plural) this deal wouldn't get done.

Pittsburgh has a window with Crosby and Malkin. Moving "kessle" for Puljujarvi and some junk picks hurts that cause. A lot.

EDM would be stupid to do that. Poolparty has a future of ten 70-90 point seasons on a lower cap hit in him. Kessel maybe has 2 or 3 left. But EDM is dumb so maybe they do this.

@Max you should see this

Kids these days, Im telling you.


DONT TOUCH POOLPARTY

I love that OP felt the need to put “fair” in the trade

In 65 games last year he scored 20 points. I don't know how you went from 20 to 90 but I think you got a Chinese business man working your numbers.

He played 65 games as a 19yo on a terrible team. Also, his most used line added up to 177 minutes, which means there was no consistency. Kid is a beast.

Good players still play well on terrible teams. Just ask McKinnon. You gonna come out here with 90 points. I'm sorry, he's not a 90 point player. Not even close. Not even in the same universe. If he was a 90 point player he'd been playing on McDavid or Drais wing and lighting the lamp and the team wouldn't have sucked balls all year.

Are you really comparing a 1st overall pick center to a 3rd picked winger in his draft? That's unfair but let's do it anyways.

Puljujarvi 19yo: 20 points (17 at 5v5)
2 Most Use Lines:
*Lucic-McDavid-Pul 177 minutes
*Lucic-Strome-Pul 92 minutes

MacKinnon 19: 38 points (29 at 5v5)
2 Most Used Lines:
*Landesgkos-MacKinnon-O'Reilly 324 minutes
*Landeskog-MacKinnon-Iginla 150 minutes

So MacKinnon scored 18 more points (only 12 more 5v5 points) but had MUCH better linemates with a lot more time with them. If Pool spent 324 minutes with Landeskog and O'Reilly he'd be putting up big points. Also need to remember McKinnon is a center so he gets more touches, which usually equates to more points. Is MacKinnnon better than Pool? Sure. Is Pool "not even in the same universe"? Not even close. Kid is a beast that will hit big numbers.

not sure why you would do this deal to begin with(trying to win now, and kessel is not the problem), plus to make it fair Edmonton would need to kick in an additional first or two on top of the picks already listed. Guess since the penguins would have extra cap room if they threw in two additional firsts on top of whats already there Pittsburgh can take lucic off edmontons hands.

MacKinnons first year in the league he scored 63 points. Come at me when you player cracks 40. 90 point player, you high as a kite.

MacKinnon was also on a good playoff team with great players. Poolparty only played 28 games and the top 2 lines he played on had Maroon and Lucic. And I love how you keep saying 90 when that was the ceiling I was giving him. I said 70-90 point player for years.

Can a bad team be full of really good players, OR... is it more likely that they bad team is bad because it's really good players are actually just okay players that are quite overrated because of where they play and the media and fans have to make themselves feel good about something?

@pharrow @ClockReads2113

McLellan seems to want Puljujarvi to drive the 3rd line and thus doesn't give him as much time with skill centers as other young skill wingers. Here are his comparables and how well they did with skill centers P/60 (TOI):

DRAFT +1
Rantanen w/ MacKinnon: 0.00 (0:43)
Rantanen w/ Duchene: 0.00 (29:09)
Pastrnak w/ Bergeron: 1.31 (45:49)
Pastrnak w/ Krejci: 2.55 (141:15)
Nylander: NO NHL TOI
Puljujarvi w/ McDavid: 2.86 (84:01)
Puljujarvi w/ Draisaitl: 1.67 (107:28)

Rantanen did nothing, Nylander didn't even make the NHL, Puljujarvi’s numbers were better than Pastrnak’s.

DRAFT +2
Rantanen w/ MacKinnon: 1.66 (684:55)
Rantanen w/ Duchene: 0.86 (350:34)
Pastrnak w/ Bergeron: 1.96 (61:19)
Pastrnak w/ Krejci: 2.04 (499:06)
Nylander w/ Kadri: 0.00 (4:57)
Nylander w/ Bozak: 0.00 (1.45)
Puljujarvi w/ McDavid: 1.87 (256:57)
Puljujarvi w/ Draisaitl: 2.37 (101:22)

Rantanen does ok here, Pastrnak is blossoming and Nylander is still at zero. Puljujarvi’s numbers are close to Pastrnak’s, except TOI. Rantanen, whose production is well below Puljujarvi's, is getting over 1000 minutes with skill centers! Opportunity is everything here.

DRAFT +3
Rantanen w/ MacKinnon: 2.28 (946:52)
Rantanen w/ Duchene: 0.00 (12:48)
Pastrnak w/ Bergeron: 2.22 (541:19)
Pastrnak w/ Krejci: 1.54 (429:40)
Nylander w/ Kadri: 2.17 (360:06)
Nylander w/ Matthews: 1.82 (624:42)
Puljujarvi w/ McDavid: we wait
Puljujarvi w/ Draisaitl: we wait

So those 1000 minutes Rantanen got in the top-6 paid off the next year, he's now scoring at a 1st line pace. Pastrnak and Nylander are doing well too. Note, however, that NONE of these players are scoring better in draft+3 than Puljujarvi did in draft+2. In fact, Puljujarvi is at the top of the class. In fact, even JP's draft+1 results are right up there.

He just lacks opportunity.

Damn great research. And your last sentence sums it up: he just lacks opportunity. And with EDM who knows if he'll get it. He'll probably get traded for nothing.