Elias Pettersson is traded for 4 players in this massive new proposal

Elias Pettersson is the name driving a new mock trade that would send him out of Vancouver and into Montreal's top six.

The proposal, floated by hockey account IceMetrix this offseason, has Canadiens fans buzzing about landing a legitimate top-line center.

The package: Kirby Dach, Adam Engstrom, Michael Hage and a first-round pick heading to Vancouver, with Pettersson going back the other way.

Pettersson carries a cap hit of $11,600,000 and put up 51 points in 74 games this past season, 15 goals and 36 assists, but he finished at a minus-30 rating.

Would Montreal really strip its blue line depth and its best prospect for a winger who bled goals against at that rate?

That's the kind of swing that either saves a franchise or completely blows up a cap sheet. There's no in between with a number like that.

Dach put up 15 points in 37 games this season, 8 goals and 7 assists, but his last 10 games show just a single point.

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Engstrom logged 15 games on Montreal's back end this year, picking up one assist and carrying a plus-2 rating.

Hage rounds out the return as the prospect piece, the kind of name that can flip public opinion on a deal by itself depending who you ask.

Vancouver finished 32nd overall this season at 25-49-8, good for 58 points and a minus-100 goal differential. That's about as rock bottom as it gets.

Montreal finished sixth overall at 48-24-10 with 106 points, a completely different tier than the team on the other side of this proposal.

The Canadiens already have Vancouver's number this year anyway, sweeping both matchups by scores of 4-3 and 6-3.

Kent Hughes has never been afraid of a bold swing since taking over as general manager, and this one would be the boldest yet.

Nothing about this is close to real. But mock trades like this one stick around because the fit actually makes a strange kind of sense, and that's the part that's hard to shake.