They would agree and run with that steal..

Pens need a third line center in the offseason, given that Brassard will likely get payed more than they can afford. With the emergence of Riikola and Pettersson, there's a back up on the blue line. Love Schultz, but he's expensive, and the pens d-core without him looks serviceable at worst and downright good if Riikolla and Pettersson continue to develop.

Need to keep Schultz, he's so important to us.

I agree that he's important, but they're going to need to find a way to get a center, unless they want to start a season looking like 2017-18 again when they had McKegg and Rowney as their bottom six centers. If they need to trade for a center, they'll likely trade a defenseman because they have depth there, and I think Schultz fetches the best prize. Maatta would be an option to trade, but I doubt he gets as much as Schultz.

Schultz has too much value to only get a rental out of him. So no, this won't happen. He'd have to come with some term on a low cap hit. Not trading Schultz away just to end up in the same spot they are in a year later without Schultz.

agree that we need a centre but trading out second best dman isn't the way of doing it. Maatta can easily be used as a trade chip in the offseason. Even signing one through free agency like Staal or Dzingel