Perron and Adam Clendening have been traded to Anaheim for Carl Hagelin, Curtis Zupke of the Los Angeles Times reports.
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It may have been three in the morning when the news broke, but apparently Penguins’ GM Jim Rutherford doesn’t sleep.
The Penguins packaged Clendening, 23, a blueliner with decent potential, with Perron.
The Ducks acquired Hagelin from the New York Rangers for Emerson Etem last summer, one of several deals and signings Murray made to strengthen a team that advanced to the Western Conference finals last spring before losing to the eventual champion Chicago Blackhawks.
Perron was acquired from Edmonton little more than a year ago with the expectation that he would be a consistent goal-scorer, but after a strong start in his early weeks with the Penguins, his touch all but disappeared. He hasn’t scored a goal in the past 19 games.
So It’s clear Murray is working the phones and evaluating the Hagelin for Perron tradeoff is irrelevant and premature at this point in time. Last season’s three defeats there saw the Kings blow third-period leads in all of them, including a pair of two-goal margins. The Ducks had a necessity to add strength up the left-side with Carl Hagelin, Andrew Cogliano, Nick Ritchie, and Patrick Maroon to choose from. You look at David Perron, and historically, he’s roughly about a 20-goal scorer.
The move from a Penguins point of view is a bit confusing. “We’re going to attempt to get better here”.
Of the 11 Ducks forwards that have played more than 300 minutes so far this season….
So… good or bad trade? The Penguins gave up a first-round pick in Joe Morrow when they traded him for Brenden Morrow (no relation).
Anze Kopitar agreed to an eight-year, $80-million contract extension with the Kings on Saturday, keeping the franchise centre with the club through the 2023-24 season. He played in 17 games for Vancouver, but was assigned to Utica of the AHL to help them on their playoff run. Unfortunately, that success didn’t carry over into this season. Many players have gone on to make a lot more money, and have a lot more success due to their playing with one of Malkin or Crosby. Clendening has a one-year deal worth $761,250 and will be a restricted free agent this summer.
There isn’t a Jonathan Drouin trade on the horizon, which means he’ll probably get dealt some time today.
Both the Penguins’ and Ducks’ moves are seen as strategies to kick start their lineups, which have underperformed on offense. Simon Despres and Cam Fowler will soon return the Ducks blue line, and that will just create a logjam on the back end, especially with the emergence of Josh Manson and Shea Theodore.
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By trading these two and acquiring Hagelin, the Penguins free up some cap space as well, which is the biggest take-away from all of this.
