The 2026 NHL offseason seems to be taking a bit of a breather from its breakneck pace to await the results of the Leo Carlsson offer sheet. But based on everything we’ve seen so far, we’d hazard a guess that the action isn’t anywhere close to finished yet, and that there are still a few blockbuster trades left to occur before we drop the puck on the 2026-27 season.

Will the Vancouver Canucks be involved? It’s impossible to know, but the rumours have continued to swirl all the same, with many of those rumours specifically swirling around the seniormost Elias Pettersson.

We’d still probably put the odds of Pettersson being dealt this offseason at a little less than even. There’s still a very good chance he remains in Vancouver through the 2026-27 campaign. But if he does end up moving on, a new destination has come to the forefront of the discussion: Pittsburgh.

The thinking on the Penguins’ end seems to be that they’re attempting a few more competitive seasons while Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin are still around. Pettersson could help with that now, and then provide a bit of an in-between when Crosby and Malkin inevitably retire. Speaking of those two, there’s been plenty of talk about their potential ability to mentor Pettersson out of his current, extended slump.

But the Canucks would have to be getting something out of this, too. With that in mind, we thought we’d do some speculating about what a trade of Pettersson to Pittsburgh might actually look like.

Normally, you wouldn’t start a discussion like this with the cap dumps. But when it comes to moving a player with an $11.6 million cap hit, it just makes sense.

The Penguins have almost $17 million in cap space heading into next season with the majority of their roster already under contract. That means that they could take on Pettersson’s entire contract without having to make cuts first. They could, but they probably wouldn’t want to.

The Canucks might also have a tough time hitting the cap floor for 2026-27 if they just dumped Pettersson’s salary without taking anything back. At least a little bit of cap ballast makes sense. It’s also probably a preference of the Canucks over retaining salary.

Here, the Penguins will try very hard to dump Ryan Graves on the Canucks. He’s a 31-year-old LD who split last season between the NHL and AHL, but who is signed for three more years at a cap hit of $4.5 million.

He is someone the Canucks should have next-to-no interest in. This newest front office has made a point of only bringing in veterans on short-term contracts, and they’ve already got all of Zeev Buium, the younger Elias Pettersson, Jamie Oleksiak, and Kirill Kudryavtsev vying for minutes on the left side of the blueline. Were they to acquire Graves, it’d have to be expected that he’d spend the majority of the year in Abbotsford.

Stashing that much cap down in the minors might work for a season or two, but that’s not something the Canucks need to be doing for three straight seasons. They should reasonably inform the Penguins that Graves is a dealbreaker.

The Pens would have other cap-balancing options to offer. Centre Tommy Novak, aged 29, makes the most sense. Not only does he offer a short-term replacement for Pettersson down the middle, but he’s also only signed for this season at a cap hit of $3.5 million. That’s far more the sort of flippable asset the Canucks seem to, and should, prefer right now.

There is a big difference between the two. Graves is an unquestionable cap dump, pure and simple, whereas Novak could be seen to have some positive value. Still, we’d argue that it’d be better for the Canucks to accept a slightly lesser return if it meant taking back the more appropriate contract(s).

There’s always plenty of debate to be had about Pettersson’s true value. Some will attest that this latest round of NHL contract signings has pushed salaries so far through the roof that Pettersson’s own contract has gained value. Others will point to his body of work over the past couple of seasons and argue that most teams have better ways to spend that money.

In truth, it comes down to this: the Canucks really have no reason to move Pettersson without at least some positive value coming back to them in the form of future-based assets. Ryan Johnson and Co. have made it clear that they’re comfortable keeping him if that’s how it goes, and there’s an argument to be made that Pettersson could rebuild some of that value himself with an improved 2026-27 campaign.

In other words, the Penguins would have to make it worth their while, at least to some extent.

Pittsburgh does have some interesting prospects worth considering. Their very best young pieces, like Ben Kindel and Harrison Brunicke, are probably safely out of reach. But that still leaves names like Rutger McGroarty, Bill Zonnon, and Mikhail Ilyin, each of whom projects as an NHL winger. The Pens also have two top goalie prospects in Joel Blomqvist and Sergei Murashov. They seem to prefer Murashov, so maybe they’re willing to deal Blomqvist, who the Canucks could certainly use in Abbotsford this year.

The Penguins also have a lot of draft picks in their cupboard. They’ve got their own first-round picks for the foreseeable future, and they’ve also got seven second-rounders spread out over the next three drafts. Whatever is ultimately needed to close this deal, the Penguins would have it readily available.

Putting an actual price tag on Pettersson is the tricky bit. An optimist might suggest that the package should still be a somewhat premium one – think Novak, a first-round pick, and one of their better prospects, like McGroarty.

Others would suggest that the Canucks should count themselves lucky if they walk away with Novak and two of those second round picks.

If we had to guess, we’d say the real answer is probably somewhere in the middle. Maybe the Canucks could get a first or a top prospect for Pettersson, but probably not both. Maybe they’ll have to supplement their return by flipping Novak at the Trade Deadline and getting another second- or third-round pick back for him.

The pieces are in place here if both Vancouver and Pittsburgh want to make something happen. But there’s enough discrepancy and mystery involved that making actual predictions is difficult.

In the immortal words of most NHL insiders, this Pettersson-to-Pittsburgh idea might happen…or it might not. And you can quote us on that.