Not looking as bad as most thought for PIT.
Hallander seems to be doing OKAY in the SHL. I'm sure he'll probably come over and be a decent enough bottom six guy, but Kapanen has been very good for PIT and I don't see a lot of the criticisms Leafs fans had about him.
To be honest, Kapanen and Ceci have probably been our most consistent players overall this year outside of Bryan Rust. Be curious to see what Kapanen finishes with point wise. Also, weirdly enough he isn't being used on the PK at all.
Final point. A lot of people want to make this seem like an overpay because of the deals that eventually went down the rest of the off season. TBH, what play of Kapanen's caliber and on that kind of contract was moved? Pens basically got the best winger moved outside of Saad and Kapanen and Saad are in completely different places career wise. Seems like a solid win / win for both teams tbh.
There was nothing wrong with Kapanen, but 15th overall + Hallander was selling high on him and we needed his cap space. He wouldn't have broken out in a 3rd line role here, and he struggled in our top 6. Good for him for working out in PIT, but that doesn't come as any major surprise to Leafs fans.
Mikheyev has done a great job replacing him right now, and we've got guys like Joey Anderson, Filip Hallander, and Rodion Amirov coming up (which is what we received for Kapanen + Andreas Johnsson) plus guys like Mikhail Abramov, Nick Abruzzese, Nick Robertson, and Roni Hirvonen who we feel can cheaply replace guys like him, Johnsson, and eventually Alex Kerfoot and Ilya Mikheyev within the next few years. We seem to do a decent job at finding quality Russian and bargain UFA targets as well, so we can afford to move guys like Kapanen to get quality picks and prospects.