Empoleon8771
Registered User
I get that perspective, but I go back to this:
There is a strong desire for NHL teams to make improvements this year despite the constraints of the cap and a weak UFA class. If Bryan Rust is available to a team, they're going to pursue him. Because while he may not be available to everyone, the teams he is available to will know that their competition is improving with other players.
Again, that's not the driving factor here. Rust's NMC is the driving factor here.
I really don't understand how people can't understand this. Rust has a full NMC that would either kill any trade or only allow trades to certain destinations. We have seen time and time again how that kind of power destroys the value for a player. And with Rust, we're talking about a guy who people in here keep saying had a bad year last year.
You'd have to jump through hoops to even come up with a trade that is possible that Rust would approve of, and then you're trying to trade away a 31 year old player signed long term at $5 million coming off a bad year. Oh yeah, he also has that NMC.
There is no situation where the Penguins can trade Rust and get good value back for him, just like there is no situation where the Penguins can trade Malkin and get good value back for him. They only leave if they're okay with leaving, and then they can hand pick any location they could want to go to. What sort of leverage do the Penguins have there to get anything of note back for them? Calling Rust untradeable is much more realistic than any other idea.
The only way the Penguins would get good value for Rust is if he wants to leave and is super willing to work with the Penguins to waive to whoever can give the Penguins the best return. But why would Rust do that? He took less money to get the NMC, why would he suddenly invalidate the NMC just to get traded? Even guys who wanted to be traded in the past with those kind of trade restrictions (such as Nash and Kesler) still hand-picked their location they were willing to go to.
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