Because as-is, we're already hearing reports that Pettersson is probably going to want out asap. Trading Horvat is fine, we invested draft capital into him a while back and this is our chance to cash out on him. But Kuz is found money. He's still relatively young at 26 - young enough that he'd still be productive by the time a rebuild would be finished. If we strip the team totally down and leave Pettersson to play with journeymen exclusively, you think he'll want to stay in Vancouver long term? This isn't Be A GM mode lol you have to consider the moral of your star players, and from what we know Pettersson and Kuzmenko are friends off the ice as well. To go past that, it's his first season in North America. Kuzmenko is only 2 years older than what Panarin was when he first came over to North America. Go take a look at his first season, and then his first season with the Rangers. Take a look at Kaprizov's 1st season, then the seasons that follow. Point is, even with the successful Russians who come over, there is a transition period. This is what Kuzmenko's transition period looks like - I'd absolutely be in favour of taking the risk and seeing if there is another gear with this player. Sign him to a bridge deal - the bidding war will be there at the end of his bridge deal as well if we're still interested in moving him, but there is a significant amount of upside in holding off with him and actually extending him.