I did not expect a Elias trade, but I have loved this Pettersson trade. He has been amazing since coming to Pittsburgh. He's fit in perfectly and I really like the pairing with him and JJ. Sprong is doing good in Anaheim as well which is nice to see. Deal worked out for both teams!

Go get all the Petterssons

Not the best GM in the league but the trade has paid off so far.

who is? Stevie Y when he was with Tampa? Yeah he put together a good team, but nothing to show for.. Rutherford has done nothing but fleece and win pretty much every trade and built a cup winning team

Rutherford's trades since coming to Pittsburgh are tops in the league.
Rutherford's FA signings since coming to Pittsburgh (both UFA and RFA) are very poor.

An "A" on one side, a "D-" on the other... (Not an "F" for FA signings because he didn't do anything like $6Mx7 for Lucic, etc)

Built a cup winning team. Are you delusional? He arrived with two of the best players in the world already in place, and a stud Letang on defense. Not hard to fill in the pieces.

I can’t in good conscience say that the GM who traded Klim Kostin and Oskar Sundqvist for Ryan Reaves is the best GM in the league. That being said, the Pettersson deal was a stroke of genius. Sprong was so overrated and one-dimensional that it was an easy win.

Which he then flipped Reaves, and another meh player in Cole into Derick Brassard with 40% salary retention.

The Pens were not going to pick Kostin. Reaves literally cost them only Sundqvist.

Exactly! They wanted Jokiharju, but Chicago picked him 2 picks prior to their pick. The next defenseman on their board that they wanted was Lauzon who was a late 2nd round projection.

Well if they weren’t then they traded a 1st round pick for a player that played 5 minutes a night for them

So why did shero struggle so much with this team then? And that stud Letang, ya they won a cup without him when he was hurt. And no, Stevie y didn’t build a cup WINNING team, he built a cup contending team

No, they traded Sundqvist for a player that played 5 minutes a night. They picked the guy that they would have anyway with the StL pick that came with Reaves. Again, Reaves cost them only Sundqvist.

You’re telling me they were gonna pick Lauzon at 31st? He can’t even score in the Q. You could be right, but there were so many better players between 31st and 51st.

Rutherford said after the draft that they were going to draft him and figured that it was worth the risk to flip picks.