First trade is bad for ANA. Second trade is bad for PIT.

I fail to see how. It's the only way for them to be cap compliant

worry about the cancucks cap issues.

Excuse me?

Vatrano makes $7.3 million over the next two seasons and Granlund makes $11 million. We're happy with Frankie, so we'll stand pat.

Only way for who to be cap compliant? PIT can easily get cap compliant. They can still buy out Granlund and save $4m in the 72 hours after arbitration. I doubt they will, but that would be an infinitely better decision than giving away Pettersson for an overpaid 3LD.

And Pettersson isn't overpaid himself?

Maybe you'll stand pat, but you can't tell me that Verbeek is "happy" with Vatrano. You don't sign Vatrano to a multi-year contract if you're intention is to tank. Oh, that must mean Verbeek wasn't intent on tanking last off-season

Excuse me, but you didn't answer my question

Sure you do. Tanking teams always sign players that could be valuable trade bait. And it helps them get to the cap floor.

Our signing of Frankie Vatrano had absolutely nothing to do with tanking or not tanking; it had to do with providing a productive bridge to the maturity of Zegras, McTavish, Drysdale and our future high draft picks and prospects like Gaucher, Pastujov and Perreault. Yes, Verbeek is happy -- probably MORE than happy -- with Vatrano, since he actually exceeded our expectations this season: he set personal bests in assists and points and came close to equalling his personal best in goals.

You can’t be serious man

Maybe one-year deals, like Chicago did with Athanasiou and Domi, but not MULTI-YEAR deals, like Strome and Vatrano

Okay, but how was he defensively?

Oh I'm dead serious. You explain what the heck Verbeek is up to, because it doesn't quite make sense to me

Yes I did. You just ignored it. How about you explain why Pettersson is overpaid?

That’s just silly. Chicago also signed Seth Jones, Connor Murphy, and just re-signed AA to mult-year contracts knowing they were going into a rebuild. SJ signed Hertl longterm knowing they are rebuilding. They also signed Nico Sturm to a multi-year deal. Bad teams need vets for the young guys and guys that also bring solid trade value for eventual trades. Anaheim should be at the tail end of their rebuild so while they may not have expected to compete last year, they are likely going to start pushing towards competitiveness over the next year or 2.

Pettersson is NOT elite, Pens would have made the playoffs if he was. They didn't

The Pens have three months to get cap compliant, more than enough time. Hastily dealing their best defensive player, who easily earned his keep last season, is a very poor solution. The Pens would happily make the first deal. Problem is both teams have to agree to a trade and Anaheim likely wouldn’t to that. The second trade would make the team substantially worse. That’s the kind of move that gets GMs fired. That’s a Hextall move.

Grier didn't re-sign Hertl, Kyle Davidson didn't sign Seth Jones and Connor Murphy to those contracts. Seriously man, and Nico Sturm wasn't brought in to be a needle mover

Graves is now their best defensive player, and Pettersson being a team's best stay-at-home defender is obviously not a high enough bar to set for a competitive team, hence the Pens missing the playoffs last season

That comment makes it clear you didn’t watch the Pens last season.

It doesn’t matter who signed them. The fact is that gm’s of rebuilding still sign decent or better players to multi-year contracts. I mean you can try to move the goal posts all you want but your comment that rebuilding teams don’t sign good players to multi-year contracts is still silly and not true.

Wow with that sound logic, SJ should be paying teams to take on EK65. Obviously he’s not elite. If he was, SJ would have made the playoffs.

Oh my god dude… 🤦🏻‍♂️