6:55 am: Pierre LeBrun of TSN and The Athletic provides details on the conditional third-rounder. It can be upgraded to a second-round selection if the Penguins made the Stanley Cup Final and Carter plays in at least half of their games.
12:45 am: The trade has been made official. The Kings will receive a conditional 2022 third-round pick and a conditional 2023 fourth-round pick, while retaining 50% of Carter’s remaining contract. The conditions on the draft picks have not yet been announced.
While two draft picks are nice to get, part of the win here for the Kings is getting out from at least part of Carter’s contract. The team desperately wants to get younger and provide roster spots for some of their up-and-coming talent, so clearing Carter off the books—even if it doesn’t scrub his contract completely and comes with some recapture risk—was something of a necessity. The veteran forward’s career in Los Angeles comes to an end after 580 games and two Stanley Cup championships.
9:35 pm: The Penguins and Kings have held discussions regarding a trade that would send center Jeff Carter to Pittsburgh, reports TSN’s Bob McKenzie (Twitter link). In follow-up tweets, McKenzie reported that Los Angeles players were saying their goodbyes to the veteran with the Kings expected to receive a couple of conditional draft picks from Pittsburgh while retaining some salary.
When the trade call goes through as planned, the Penguins will be receiving a player that new GM Ron Hextall is very familiar with. Not only was Hextall the Philadelphia Flyers’ director of player personnel when Carter was selected in 2003 and made his NHL debut during the 2005-06 season, but Hextall was the assistant general manager of the Kings when they traded for the center in 2012.
The player the Kings acquired back then was a big-bodied center that could routinely put up 25-30 goals while playing strong defense. The one they’re getting today isn’t quite at that level, but certainly adds a lot of experience to the position. Now 36, Carter has over 1,000 regular season games played in the NHL, 120 more in the postseason, two Stanley Cup championships, and an Olympic gold medal. He just so happened to be teammates with Sidney Crosby on that gold medal-winning 2014 Olympic squad, an international duo that goes back to the 2005 World Junior squad that is considered one of the best of all time.
Now, Carter will get to slide in behind Crosby on the depth chart and give the Penguins another talented forward to challenge for the Stanley Cup once again. After winning again tonight, the Penguins are now 27-13-2 on the season and sit just two points behind the tied Washington Capitals and New York Islanders for the division lead. An 8-2 run in their last two has proven that the Penguins deserved a little boost at the trade deadline, and the veteran Carter is just that.
Still, it’s important to remember that Carter has just nine goals and 19 points this season and is still under contract through 2021-22. His current cap hit is $5.27MM, but depending on how much the Kings have retained, that number could come down to something much more palatable. In actual salary, Carter is owed just $2MM this season and next.
That discrepancy between salary and cap hit is exactly why trading Carter has been so tricky in the past. As PuckPedia points out, if the veteran forward decided to retire after this season, both the Columbus Blue Jackets and the Kings would be hit with a recapture penalty. If Los Angeles retained 50% in this trade and Carter decides to hang up his skates after this season, the Kings would face a $3.1MM recapture penalty in 2021-22 (the Blue Jackets would have a $551K penalty regardless of the retention in this deal).
Interestingly, that route would actually give the Penguins a cap bonus for next season ($381K if 50% retained), meaning they have no risk in that regard. The idea behind recapture is that in the early years of the 11- year contract (which is no longer allowed under the new CBA), Carter was earning much more salary than his cap hit represented. In the case of early retirement, the recapture process is meant to even out that early reward by penalizing the team(s) that received it.
More to follow.
I hope that this and the Deslauriers rumor are just Yohe and Rossi pulling drunken pranks.
The Pens SHOULD call the Kings and trade for one of their wingers, but it should be Andreas Athanisiou.
Carter is still signed for next year at $5.2 million. How would we make that work? Even if we could, why would we make that work?
If the Pens are going to trade for an old overpriced winger from the Kings just because Hextall knows them, Dustin Brown would make way more sense than Carter (who I do like as a player, but not as a fit). Brown could fit on the third line, at least.
I agreed with you but the pens do not. The only way I would have been looking for another center is I’d Malkin was not coming back this season. I hope that is not the case as the deal is done.
Uh you have Jankowski on the roster centering a line. Even at 36 Carter is a huge upgrade
You just can’t give up the ghost with Athanasiou. Talk about overpaid and worthless. And Yohe and Rossi aren’t reporting it. The next story either of them break will be the first. It was Elliotte Friedman and Bob McKenzie. I would say those guys have a few reliable contacts. As for Carter I have to admit it I don’t see it either.
Carter has 19 points in 40 games making $5.2 million. Stuck with him next year.
Athanasioiu has 17 points in 32 games making $1.2 million (playing fewer minutes). Pure rental.
If Makin comes back, they do not necessarily need Jankowski centering a line.
Thanks for everything you did for LA and the cups you helped bring, but it was time to move on. Best of luck in PITT
Burke and Hextall should do some quick reading on Penguins history. This smacks of the failed moves that brought Jerome Iginla and Brendan Morrow in that only served the wreck the team chemistry.
Jeff Carter is Low risk large potential reward.
As a Kings fan, I can say that although Carter has lost a step or two he still brings value, especially on a talented team like Pitt where he won’t be expected to do too much.
He is a great locker room guy, experienced, and a postseason contributor. He is versatile, can play up and down the line-up, down the middle or on a wing. He kills penalties, can help on the power play, has been good on face-offs this year. As long as you’re not expecting or paying for top-line production, he will give good, solid depth with the potential for more when surrounded by more talent. He was my favorite King for years and I’ll miss him for sure!
I can see Carter fitting in well with the Penguins lineup. Having playoffs to look forward to again may add a spark to his game.
@Gbear – Good to see you back in the mix here. Hope all is well with you!
Gonna miss you jeff! But that return is decent! Let’s go kings
If Rutherford made this move…
Be interesting to see the reaction.
Does Carter even play center any more? I’ve seen him slotted at RW mostly for a while.
I assume the idea is McCann plays as Geno’s LW while Carter centers Zucker and Rodrigues? OK, but…what if Carter and Zucker have no chemistry (very possible, both are shooters)? We know that line works with McCann…why break it up?
Do you play Carter out of position at LW with Geno at that point? I can’t remember Geno ever meshing with a right shot LW.
Getting a LW to play with Geno and KK was a much safer (and better) bet.
As said above, it reminds me of Iggy. Good/great players don’t help if you have nowhere to play them or even worse, if you disrupt what you have working to try to make it happen.
And his cap hit is here next year, even if this flops.
Color me skeptical and unimpressed with this decision.*
*I just saw his cap hit for next year on our books for 2022 on CapFriendly. Let me upgrade that description. Hate is a strong word, but I seriously dislike this move a lot. I hope to eat crow, but…ugh.
I guess the hope is that he retires after the playoffs. He certainly gets left unprotected for Seattle.
Carter can slot at wing or center. Still has wheels and is actually a pretty good passer, for kings he was tasked with being our “scorer” but is cable of making slick passes. Our lineups are pretty terrible the last 2 seasons and he has battled a litany of injuries that take time to recover from. This season, although it might not show statically he actually looks really fresh. There’s also speculation he may retire next season to this might be the last half season for him in a jersey.
I have started hearing these “he might retire” rumors, too. If so, that does remove my main objection to the trade.
IF he can gel with Zucker and it’s just a rental, so be it. As I said in my first post, I do like him as a player. Just hope the fit works.
Hate seeing former great Flyers play for the Pens.
Watching Recchi, Max and Jagr in orange was pretty awful, so I can understand, but…
Besides Tocchet, when has it happened?
No one really major has. I think guys like Aaron Asham have, but he practically played for every team in the division. I would say the two before this that hurt as a Flyer fan are Dave Schultz and John LeClair. It’s very rare as the teams refuse to trade to the point that the Flyers traded Mark Strait to the Lightning to then be traded to the Pens because they refused to do a direct trade.
I do feel your pain though. You probably had a hard time seeing Jagr in Orange and Black the same way it took me a while to root for him!
I think LeClair would count, but he did so little here I forgot about him.
And FWIW, Max Talbot hurt way more than Jagr. We hated Jagr and for a few days talked ourselves into taking him back only to have him double cross us so we just went right back to hating him. Max (semi-literally) won us a Cup and was beloved here.
The great Mark Friedman. In all seriousness though, he could be a regular next season with Ceci likely gone.