The Pittsburgh Penguins acquired center Derick Brassard from Ottawa on Friday night in a three-team deal that sent defenseman Ian Cole to Ottawa and forward Ryan Reaves to the Vegas Golden Knights.
The Penguins announced the deal Friday night during their 6-1 victory at Carolina, with Pittsburgh general manager Jim Rutherford calling it “the most complex trade I’ve made” because of salary cap issues and the involvement of a third team.
For different reasons, the Senators and Golden Knights will have an oversized impact on the trade deadline. We preview what could be a wild weekend, along with the Jersey Foul of the Week, a potential Olympic return for the NHL, puck headlines and more.
Pittsburgh is trying to become the first team since the 1982-83 New York Islanders to win three straight Stanley Cups. Brassard figures to slide in as the third-line center behind Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin.
“We’ve tried to get more depth at center and get more insurance there,” Rutherford said. “Our centers have played pretty well, but you’ve got to have a lot of strength at center and we just felt we had a chance to get a guy like this, this was a good addition.”
This offseason, you can expect quarterback-needy teams to try to make space for Kirk Cousins. He’s going to require a large contract, especially after Jimmy Garoppolo signed his mega deal. The Jaguars are just one of a handful of teams that we could see making a push for him, but they would have to make some cuts to make that happen. They could start with Bortles, immediately opening up $19 million.
The spread on the Super Bowl had the Patriots favored by 4.5 points. The line opened at Patriots -6, and dropped as low as -4, but it didn’t matter with the Eagles winning outright. At kickoff, the Eagles were +176 on the moneyline, so if you bet $100 on the Eagles to win the game, you won $176.
The point total was at either 48 or 48.5 at kickoff, depending on your sportsbook of choice. This too did not matter as the game blew past it in the third quarter. After a relatively quiet first quarter, things picked up from there and the final score brought a total of four points. That is the highest point total since 75 combined points between the San Francisco 49ers and San Diego Chargers in Super Bowl 29.