Proposal: Penguins-Sabres

[Djp]

Penguins trade Sheary
Sabres trade McCabe

It's a pretty self explanatory trade I think. The Penguins have a surplus of 3rd line wingers, and they need a DFD to play with Oleksiak on the bottom pair. The Sabres have a surplus of 3rd pair defenseman, and they need a scoring LW to help with their top-9 scoring. Both of these guys are similarly aged and have had better seasons in the past than the seasons they had last year, so there is an upside with both of them (2nd line scorer for Sheary and solid #4 defenseman for McCabe). Any comments?

I could see such a deal happening with bots wanting a player from Pittsburgh.

I don’t care That much for Sherry. I think McCabe would be more expendable next summer without buffalo making another bug add acqusion outside of drafting dahlin.

 

[Meichel Kane]

I'd probably wait until training camp to see where Pilut, Guhle, etc are at, but, yeah, seems like an OK deal.

 

[Peat]

Would Penguins really do this?

*McCabe has teased us with top 4 potential a long time but he is very up and down. If Sheary is a product of Crosby/Malkin I can understand it from a Pens standpoint. As a Sabres fan I’d love this trade.

Sheary has a higher p/60 away from Crosby two seasons running (although relatively high samples) and doesn't really gel with Malkin.

There's a lot of split opinions on Sheary and how good he is, but I think even his fans among Pens fans are down for trading him because a) We have a *lot* of wingers, particularly high offence meh defence wingers, and it makes sense to move one for defensive help b) He's not the greatest play off player ever and the play offs are what matters to this team.

So yeah, I can see the Pens doing this. I think the Pens trading Sheary for a player like McCabe, or a futures return to free up space for a free agent signing, is probably the safest Pens off-season prediction.

I don't know how well Sheary will do for whichever team acquires him, but one thing he does seem to bring all the time is regular season ES goal scoring. At peak, he's a nice playmaker and forechecker too. There's a good chance he'll make us look like absolute idiots for selling so low... but them's the breaks.

 

[orby]

It makes sense. My instinct would be to package Sheary for a better defenseman, but it's not a bad idea.

 

[Dreakon13]

I'm not sure the Pens needs exactly, but as a Sabres fan, we need wingers and defense. Swapping one for the other straight up isn't too tantalizing.

Dahlin will obviously be a huge boost, and probably makes some lesser D pieces expendable... but McCabe's recent shortcomings IMO are more a result of playing through injury and on a deflated bottom feeder of a team, than indicative of his ability (or lack thereof). He's not the smartest player on the ice at any given time, but he's big, he hits and has some offensive game. Perfect bottom pairing guy in the right situation. I'd rather keep him, maintain some defensive depth for the first time in a decade, and find winger help elsewhere... maybe even cross our fingers that one of our young wingers can become a Sheary-type (Bailey, Baptiste, Pu).

 

[Vujtek]

Regarding Sheary and playoffs:

With two goals both against the Sharks and Predators he was tied for Penguins' highest goal scorer in Final in 2016 and 2017. He has 0.50 PPG in the Final which is much higher than his overall PPG in the playoffs.

Clearly the conclusion is that he would thrive in Western Conference playoff hockey.

 

[molon labe]

I like it. Though I also like Sheary at 3M (with a rising cap..sucked last year) and have no problem keeping him. Unlike most of the people on this board who prefer 2nd round picks, anyone that can hang with top Cs is of value in this league.

He's trade bait for teams like EDM, BUF, NJ, VGK because of his speed and tenacity to the puck. His SHORTcomings are that he falls down all the time for no reason and had a major slump (but so did many this year).

If we are to deal him, getting a bottom pair D would be great - certainly better than the additional spin on the slot machine that is the NHL draft.