Honestly, this is something I have thought of. I am not sure the value is there for PHI though. Although both Zucker and JvR struggled last season, JvR still has the higher value/better potential to bounce back, even if he makes more. We are also sending McGinn's contract with a 3rd, which probably is not enough. I am sure Hextall would love to acquire JvR.. he signed him to this contract back in 2018, but I think the value would need to be increased to make it happen.

Not a terrible idea at all. Might need some adjustment, as @Marcsnack suggests, but a reasonable possibility.

A terrible one for the pens. They are trading a good cheap 3rd pair d for nothing then swapping bad contracts and taking on the worse one while paying just to dump McGinn.

Need to include POJ in trade to dump that POS

Ruhwedel and Friedman don't both clear imo might as well get something. but I don't hate keeping Brock around

Philly says no. They're tight to the cap as it is themselves, so this actually adds $1.25M to their 2022-23 cap hit (plus 2 more @ $2.75M for McGinn) and all they get for it is a 3rd?

And for everything bad you can say about JVR, he's still a good offensive player - 24 goals in 82 GP last year with his shooting numbers basically right in line with his career averages. I honestly think if he keeps up his production and is at 15ish goals at the deadline, a team will give up a decent pick to get him retained down to $1.75M and use him as a scoring forward/PP specialist. If Philly's doing what they *should* be doing and rebuilding, I'd rather roll the dice on getting the better return with JVR than Zucker as my deadline flip, considering Zucker has missed a ton of time over the past 2 years and has struggled to create offense when he has been on the ice.

You don’t need to send either down.
You can send smith down, just keep Zucker because Zucker for JVR is just a trade of spare parts simply to trade them. Would probably be better off dealing with the devil you know than the one you don’t and just pick JVR up in the offseason for free. Can trade McGinn if need be to a team like Arizona for future considerations. He’s not really a bad player or a terrible contract. The pens just have like 10 players ready to make that jump and can play that spot for less. That makes the pens cap compliant and be able to have a 13F and 8D. Given Dumo’s recent injury history and Letang and Petry’s ages, it’d probably be wise to carry 8 Dmen.