I don't see a need to trade for a forward with McGroarty, Koivunen, Broz and Ponomarev sitting in the AHL as very close to NHL ready. O'Connor and Beauvillier are almost assuredly going to be traded at the deadline and I figure at least one of those guys will be replaced with one of their top AHL players. I wouldn't even be surprised to see the McGroarty-Broz-Koivunen line just stick together and come up as its own L3, leaving Bunting-Malkin-Tomasino as L2.
I actually think they need a good 4th line forward that fits what Sullivan is looking for while not being a horrid player outside of it. People can fairly roll their eyes at this, but I think a big reason why the 4th line sucks and Sullivan is playing these crappy Nieto/Acciari types is because Dubas didn't give him better versions of those players. You can acquire a Tanev type of guy to play on L4 that both fits what Sullivan wants while also not being a complete drag on the team, Lizotte fits that perfectly.
They need D help far more than they need F help IMO. I'm okay-ish with POJ-Letang and Pickering-Karlsson but that bottom pair is an absolute nightmare that needs to be dramatically improved. They don't have the ability to improve that pair through WBS, so they must do that from outside of the organization. My ideal lineup would have something like a Cole-Schultz caliber 3rd pair that can reliably give you 18-19 minutes a night, especially if you're running with POJ and Pickering as your top-4 LD.
It's not realistic but my hope would be to have something like this to end the year:
1. Trade Beauvillier, Grzelcyk, Nedjelkovic and O'Connor for futures (Nieto too if anyone will give you a pick for him)
2. Trade futures for Hague and Borgen, with the intent on keeping them beyond this year
3. If you can trade Acciari or Graves as well, look for a young upgrade on them as well (4th line RW for Acciari, someone to push POJ to #7D for Graves)
Rakell-Crosby-Rust
Bunting-Malkin-Tomasino
McGroarty-Broz-Koivunen
Lizotte-Ponomarev-Acciari (unless you can trade Acciari)
Glass-Hayes
Hague-Karlsson
Pickering-Letang
POJ-Borgen
Graves (unless you can trade Graves)
Jarry-Blomqvist