There has been a lot of talk about the Dallas Stars goaltending situation and the fact that Pittsburgh will eventually need to move Marc-Andre Fleury. Apparently there has been some discussion between both teams on this front. Don't get too carried away though because things are preliminary and not very serious at the present moment
LeBrun on very preliminary discussion between #Stars and #Pens on Marc-Andre Fleury. "But I stress preliminary..." https://t.co/ZpyTGLR1ki
— Chris Nichols (@NicholsOnHockey) February 8, 2017
Dallas has a bad goaltending situation and the Penguins have a veteran goaltender with a large track record that is going to be traded.
So how does this have to look for the Penguins for it to make sense?
I view the cap space vacated by a Fleury trade to be one of the biggest benefits of trading Fleury. If Dallas and Pittsburgh are going to get together on a deal involving Fleury the potential cap savings won't be as large. The Stars have too much money tied up in Kari Lehtonen and Antti Niemi for them to acquire Fleury without some money going out the other way.
You might ask why can't Dallas retain some salary on Niemi? Fleury's contract alone is going to be a lot for them to take in let alone adding 2M in retention to Fleury's 5.75M cap hit. The Fleury contract, Lehtonen contract, and 2M in Niemi retention would run Dallas 13.65M. That's a crazy amount of money locked into goaltending and I can't even see a desperate Dallas team doing it.
There is an option Pittsburgh could entertain that involves acquiring Niemi without any salary retention. The Penguins could buy Niemi out at the end of the season after using him as Murray's backup in 2016-17. There have been rumblings about a Fleury buyout to avoid losing Murray in the expansion draft so why not a Niemi buyout? Here is what the difference between the two goalies' buyouts look like courtesy of CapFriendly.com
Fleury
Niemi
Not only is Niemi's cap hit after a buyout 400k cheaper but it is also for two years less than Fleury. Going this route shouldn't be option #1 for Pittsburgh but what if nothing else materializes?
For those concerned about Niemi potentially being Matt Murray's backup instead of Fleury
In an attempt to make the deal more palatable for the Penguins I would also ask for Patrick Eaves in return for Eric Fehr. Patrick Eaves is somebody I have written about in the past as being one of the more underrated bottom six players in the league and his skill set would fit nicely with the Penguins in a bottom six role. He's a good skater, has shown in the past he is capable of producing offense, and he only has a cap hit of 1M that will expire at the end of the season. Think of him in the mold of a Matt Cullen but on the right wing.
This is about as realistic of a deal as I can come up with that involves both Fleury and Niemi in the same trade that makes moderate sense for both sides. Dallas gets their goalie of the future while completely shedding one of their goaltender salaries. Pittsburgh gets to protect Matt Murray and can improve their bottom six for the playoff run while getting rid of Fehr's 2M cap hit for next year.
The problem for Pittsburgh is that the goaltending market might not bear a lot of fruit for them. They need to move Fleury and beggars can't be choosers. We'll see if anything materializes on this front as the trade deadline nears.
Thanks for reading!