If we aren't in a playoff position, which we most likely won't be, we could retain 50% of his salary and send him to a contender for depth. Perron at 50% would have got us a nice draft pick.
And we can never sign top FAs becuase we never have cap space because of trades like this.
Too much ego to sell.
And it might not even be selling. Boston is retaining salary on Lucic and they are in a much better spot than us.
Why are people so sure of these things?
1) It's not even remotely clear that there would have been a market for Perron at the deadline the way he was playing.
2) When was the last time a struggling soon-to-be UFA depth rental garnered a decent 1st or even high 2nd? Let alone something of value?
3) I must have missed the part where we were stuck with Hagelin after he waived his no-trade clause. Because as it now stands we can trade him to whomever whenever.
4) What on earth does keeping Perron do for us except creating another hole to be filled by a UFA (which rarely works out)? If Hagelin works, we have a spot for him for market value, which is better than having to go out and bid on a replacement in free agency. If he doesn't, then he's traded at the draft or in the off-season and we're at the same place that we would have been WITH Perron.
5) Who are these mysterious UFAs we would be signing for insanely low numbers who are also super amazing and who want to be on the Pens?
A lot of assumptions that people are making when they try to paint keeping Perron as the "smart", let alone "logical" choice.