Sounds like he doesn't want to resign there.

Leafs would gladly accept.

We’re not giving away Roy with a 3rd for future considerations lol

Vegas gave Pacioretty away for future considerations. It's less about worth and more about other teams knowing that Vegas needs to do these deals to make room for the players they actually want to sign, so they don't have a ton of leverage. I'm not saying this exact trade would be the one to go through, maybe a third wouldn't need to be added (although ~4 million is quite a bit of cap to dump for free), and maybe it wouldn't be with the Preds, it's more about the idea of dumping those players to make room for signing Hanifin, Marchessault, and Stephenson.

Pacioretty is a lazy comparison. Guy on the wrong side of 30 with a 7M cap hit coming off a season that he missed more than half the games because of injury is not the same as a 27 year old at 3M for 3 more years having a career year. He could take Stephenson's place in the lineup today and it would be hardly noticeable, there's no reason to prioritize him over Roy especially when the Hertl trade was effectively choosing Hertl over Stephenson long term. Saying that Vegas has a history of dumping guys out for new ones is not wrong, but there's no cap dump comparable to Roy to suggest he's close to being the next one.

A fair point, although I think you're underselling how good Pacioretty was and how aggressive Vegas was in dumping him for future considerations. You're probably right though, this was mostly an exercise in seeing whether there's a way for Vegas to keep all their big pieces together this offseason, but I think it's likely and probably the right move to move on from Stephenson.