2 mil for an effective middle six forward isn’t really a salary dump. It’s a dump of a player we erroneously decided not to protect.

This may be an even weirder trade from Toronto though since they exposed him.
- Victoro311

Imagine if the pens did that exact thing what the blog would have looked like!? Hahahaha

You gonna waste a pick on a UFA that you might not be able to sign? I dunno if I would if I was Francis. Although I guess they are allowed to talk first to see if he’d sign or will sign.
- j.boyd919

I just assumed they could talk to unprotected UFA's before the draft. If they can't, I agree, I wouldn't risk it.

Well one things for sure, we’re gonna have to be aggressive in free agency. Can’t afford to do what we did last year and bring in a bunch of fourth liners hoping someone will surprise and become a viable top 9 option. Too many holes to plug now.

Pettersson getting taken is best case scenario IMO.
- MacPatty

If the Pens want to change things up and move on from Zucker to replace him with someone like Coleman or Saad then Seattle selecting Pettersson doesn't work out well for the Pens. Pettersson IMO has better trade value than Zucker, so SEA taking Zucker and then the Pens moving Pettersson would put the Pens in a more favorable position.

Meh...McCann was fine and good value, but pretending he was the difference between getting past the 1st round or not is a joke. They most likely will lose Petterson now which is fine. They cleared what $7m with out taking anything back? Thats good. They can figure out to get a top 6 F now. Face it, Malkin is pretty broken at this point and needs help. McCann wasn't the guy who was going to help the top 6 score more goals which they dont in the playoffs anymore.

Meh...McCann was fine and good value, but pretending he was the difference between getting past the 1st round or not is a joke. They most likely will lose Petterson now which is fine. They cleared what $7m with out taking anything back? Thats good. They can figure out to get a top 6 F now. Face it, Malkin is pretty broken at this point and needs help. McCann wasn't the guy who was going to help the top 6 score more goals which they dont in the playoffs anymore.
- sammy87

I’m not going to pretend like McCann is some game breaker that can’t be replaced, but McCann-Malkin-Kapanen was a very effective line in the limited run they got. McCann was a viable LW for Geno to fall back on in the likely scenario we didn’t get a legit top 6 guy in free agency. Now we have no back up plan, which is a pretty bad spot to be in.