The Vancouver Canucks might have to pay just to give Elias Pettersson away.
That's the picture painted Monday night by insider Rick Dhaliwal on the Canucks Conversation podcast.
One team reportedly told Dhaliwal it needs Vancouver to retain $2 million, maybe $2.5, potentially close to $3 million a year just to engage on a Pettersson deal.
Pettersson carries an $11,600,000 cap hit, the exact number that makes any trade conversation complicated for a suitor.
Rick Dhaliwal: Re Canucks: I know for a fact, one team told me...to get in the Elias Pettersson trade talks, they need retention, 2, 2.5, close to 3 [million] per year to make it work.
He posted 51 points in 74 games last season, with 15 goals and 36 assists, but finished the year at minus-30.
He still chipped in four power play goals and 18 power play assists, the kind of special-teams touch that keeps some shine on a rough season.
Over his last 10 games, though, Pettersson managed just six points with zero goals, going minus-7 in that stretch.
Pettersson's decline is turning a superstar price into a bargain-bin ask
Vancouver finished last season 25-49-8, good for 58 points and 32nd overall in the entire league.
The Canucks were also 9-27-5 at home, one of the roughest home splits anywhere in hockey.
They were outscored 316 to 216 on the year, a minus-100 goal differential that goes a long way toward explaining why this trade talk exists at all.
Vancouver's season ended on an L1 skid, capped by a 1-6 loss at Edmonton on April 16.
So why would any rival team agree to pay retention on a player trending in the wrong direction?
Asking a suitor to eat close to $3 million a year on a declining center is like asking someone to pay full sticker price for a car with a cracked engine block.
If that's really the number Vancouver is holding firm on, it's a bad bet for whoever bites first.
Manny Malhotra took over as the Canucks' head coach on June 1, and a Pettersson trade would land before he ever gets to coach him.
Moving him clears space up front, but every retained dollar shrinks whatever comes back in return.
Whether Vancouver actually swallows that retention number, or ends up holding Pettersson into another season, is still very much unresolved.
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Should the Canucks eat retention just to move Elias Pettersson this summer?
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