I guess I should jump back in and add some more clarity to this offer. The fact that both teams seem to be against it thinking it's favoring the other team means the value must not be that far off.
1) What Byron lacks in size, he makes it up in speed over Hagelin and in today's NHL, if you can have a similar production from a guy that's 30% of the cost of the other, GMs would swap in a heartbeat.
2) The habs are no longer in a dire need to have the main piece coming back in a deal of Pacioretty be a C, look at the most recent draft, they drafted 8 or so Centermen. If you look at their depth chart, the RW is where they lack offensively.
3) People seem to glance over the fact that this move allows Pittsburgh to save 1.2M in cap space. If unused, that could be HUGE for the team at the next TDL in bringing in another piece for a deep push (a 4-5M type guy).
4) With Cullen back on the team, this puts the team in a position of trading either Brassard or Sheanan to upgrade another position as well.
5) For Montreal, they can always retain or package Hagelin with some of the other guys they'll offload at the TDL (Schlemko, Benn, etc.) to get 2019 2nd or something like that from another team.
Here's how I see the deal:
Hagelin, Sprong, late 2019 1st = Pacioretty - Whether we like it or not, that's roughly the price for a 30-40G guy. (1st, A prospect, Dump with trade value)
Byron + 1.2M in cap savings = Conditional 2nd - Only becomes a 1st if Pittsburgh extends Pacioretty or makes it to the last 4 teams in contention for the cup in 2019.