Add a 1st to the ARI trade.

Add Hallander to the MIN trade and change a 3rd into a 2nd.

Lol what? a first? gtfo JJ isnt as bad as people here who have never even watched him play say he is. Maybe a 3rd at best onto JJ and JR

Ugh how many times do I have to have this conversation. Johnson is horribly bad, this is why they are trying to trade him. If all it took to trade Johnson was depth defensemen and 3rd don't you think it would have happened by now? You aren't moving Johnson without a 1st or Hallander attached.

Johnson is indeed bad, but it won't take that much to move him.

If Zaitsev (longer contract and higher cap hit) got moved without having to give up anything major, Johnson can be too

Okay, "Johnson is horribly bad." Assuming that's true (which is in dispute because he seems to have played reasonably well for the Pens the first few games of the season), then Sullivan can put him in the press box -- for the entire season, if necessary.

Now if you want to argue that his contract is heavily burdensome, which is why he should be moved, that argument fails, too. JJ can be bought out next year for a total cap hit of $2MM, including the player (Riikola, for $833,333) to replace him. That saves Pittsburgh $1.25MM off the cap at no cost to Pittsburgh. Why should the Pens pay a high price to escape that result? To put it another way, why should Pittsburgh expend a first-round draft pick to save $1,166,667 (Johnson's buy-out cap hit for two years)?

The only reason people like me were suggesting in the off-season that Pittsburgh would have to expend a significant asset to unload Johnson and his contract was their cap problem before the season started. Once Rust was injured, and could be placed on LTIR, that premise evaporated. Now there is absolutely no economic need to move Johnson at all. In short, his contract is not the millstone around Rutherford's neck that Loui Eriksson's is around Jim Benning's.

Fine with the Minnesota counter. Not giving Arizona 1st. Maybe a 3rd

They had take back terrible Ceci to make it happen. And Zaitsev isn't great but nowhere near as bad as Johnson.

Okay that's great you don't have to move him anymore. But if you do when everyone gets back it isn't happening without a 1st or Hallander attached.

Then the trade isn't happening. You aren't moving Johnson without attaching something very very good to it.

I'm betting not.

If it was so easy to move him it would have been done by now.