The Pittsburgh Penguins sent defenseman Marcus Pettersson and forward Drew O’Connor to the Vancouver Canucks in exchange for the New York Rangers’ 2025 first-round pick (protected), forward Danton Heinen, defenseman Vincent Desharnais and prospect pick Melvin Fernström, the teams announced Friday.
The draft pick is top-13 protected. It was acquired by the Canucks as part of a package for forward J.T. Miller early Friday. The Penguins will receive whichever of the Rangers’ 2025 or 2026 first-round draft picks that Vancouver receives as part of the Miller trade.
“It was just something that made sense for us,” Canucks president of hockey operations Jim Rutherford said via text message.
Pettersson, 28, was an attractive candidate ahead of the trade deadline as a pending unrestricted free agent. He’s in the final year of a five-year, $20.1 million deal with Pittsburgh and is earning $4.025 million this season.
Although Pettersson liked being in Pittsburgh, general manager Kyle Dubas and Pettersson’s agent hadn’t discussed a new deal, making it a foregone conclusion that Pettersson would be dealt.
Pettersson told The Athletic in January that he tried to block out the trade speculation and not let it affect his performance.
“It’s hard,” Pettersson said. “You just learn over time that this is a business. It’s incredibly hard to block it all out, but I think I have found that you have to try. You really have to try. You focus on the thing you can control and nothing else. … I’ve had my name thrown out there a lot. It’s something that I can’t really control, though, you know?
“All I can control is the game I’m putting out there on the ice every night. That’s what I’m trying to do.”
Pettersson has scored three goals and 18 points in 47 games this season.
The Anaheim Ducks drafted him in the second round in 2014 and traded him to the Penguins in 2018. Pettersson led the NHL in games played (84) in the 2018-19 season and ranked second in that category in 2023-24 at 82 games.
O’Connor, 26, can play center or wing. He scored a career-best 16 goals and 33 points last season, playing much of the final two months in a top-six role. He hasn’t scored as regularly this season, alternating between the second and third lines, but has contributed as a penalty killer. He, like Pettersson, was set to become an unrestricted free agent.
Dubas, in his second season as president of hockey operations and general manager, has not publicly committed to a rebuild for the Penguins. However, he began amassing future assets before last season’s trade deadline when dealing winger Jake Guentzel to the Carolina Hurricanes for multiple prospects. Prospects added under Dubas have boosted the Penguins’ system — ranked 20th overall by The Athletic’s Scott Wheeler. Fernström, a 2024 third-round pick, joins a prospect pool that also includes Rutger McGroarty, a former first-round pick by the Winnipeg Jets, who Dubas acquired in the offseason.
If they get the Rangers’ first-round pick for the upcoming draft, the Penguins will have two first-round picks for the first time since 2012.
The Penguins would have 10 first- or second-round picks over the next three NHL Drafts.
O’Connor, likewise, has struggled this season after a breakout campaign during the 2023-24 season. The rangy, forechecking forward will bring some depth and size to a Canucks lineup that needed both.
Vancouver needed another solid top-four capable blue liner desperately and needed an additional depth forward too. Pettersson and O’Connor will certainly help the club qualify for the Stanley Cup playoffs this season in the wake of the Miller trade. The Canucks dealt the most valuable asset in the deal, however, and it’s crucial now that they find a way to turn these two new expiring pieces into longer-term fixtures in the Vancouver lineup.
In fact, given the high price paid, the success of this trade hinges on it.
How does Pettersson fit with Canucks?
The popular notion that a newly acquired first-round pick would burn a hole in the pockets of Vancouver hockey operations leadership was, as it turns out, far too mild.
The inclusion of Desharnais, who hasn’t fit in Vancouver and who has been on the block for months, limits the short-term cap impact of the acquisition from the Canucks’ perspective. Pettersson, originally brought to the Penguins organization by Rutherford when he was the general manager, is a pending unrestricted free agent.
This is a pretty significant price for the Canucks to pay given the contractual uncertainty surrounding him, but you’d imagine that Vancouver will push hard to extend him and make him a long-term fixture on their back end. It’s crucial now that they do, in fact, given the high price paid. Vancouver needed another solid top-four capable blue liner desperately, and Pettersson will certainly help the club qualify for the Stanley Cup playoffs. — Thomas Drance, Canucks beat writer
(Photo: Charles LeClaire / Imagn Images)
