Things are going to start picking up

Pending trade call Sheary and Hunwick to the Buffalo Sabres for a pick.

— Darren Dreger (@DarrenDreger) June 27, 2018

Conor Sheary was an undrafted free agent because of his size. Jason Botterill signed him to the Penguins farm team in WB/S. Since then he's provided quality depth offense for the Penguins. It would make sense the person who signed him would be interested in him. He's not just a product of Sidney Crosby

I'm sure some will say Sheary "just played with Crosby" but if we look at that line last season (Crosby, Sheary, Hornvist), we see it was mostly Crosby and Sheary doing work. Botterill would be bringing him here to play with Eichel/Reinhart. You need skill to play with skill. pic.twitter.com/zzz65zuHUo

— Ryan Stimson (@RK_Stimp) June 27, 2018

Jim Rutherford was very clear about making moves and here is one of the first ones. In this trade he is giving away depth scoring at a reasonable contract to cover up for one of his faux pas from the previous offseason in signing Matt Hunwick. The 2017 offseason wasn't very good for the Penguins and as of this moment it has undercut the value of one of their depth pieces in order to clear Hunwick's cap space. Clearing around 5M in cap space does have value to the Penguins. This is the first part of the trade. What will Rutherford do with this cap space?

This will clear $5.25 million in cap space. Got Rust. Sheahan will be next, most likely. Then possibly Jack Johnson/Chris Kunitz Sunday. https://t.co/yleQM8H9X8

— Jason Mackey (@JMackeyPG) June 27, 2018

If it is to sign Jack Johnson and Chris Kunitz then Rutherford has doubled down on bad value from last offseason and is off to a less ideal start in 2018's summer months. Sheary/Hunwick is a better duo than Johnson/Kunitz at this stage and I like Kunitz and don't care much for Hunwick. That should tell you how I feel about the other defenseman.

trading conor sheary (for a fourth!!!) to clear space to potentially sign jack johnson – a player who couldn’t crack the blue jackets third pair – to a multi-year deal is as bad as it gets

— dom 🦅 (@domluszczyszyn) June 27, 2018

That said, Jack Johnson hasn't been signed yet so that criticism can wait for another day. Having 5M in cap space does give the team flexibility in making a multitude of moves.

So did the Penguins do well here? They can. Will they? Depends on what they do with the space. It really could go either way.

Thanks for reading!

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