CBS sports
Pittsburgh Penguins: "I don't like the Simon Despres for Ben Lovejoy swap from a Pittsburgh perspective. Not only is Despres eight years younger, the Penguins traded a recent first-round draft pick to re-acquire a guy they traded away two years ago for a late-round draft pick. But when you look at what Pittsburgh has done from a big picture standpoint over the past few months it is a much better, deeper team than it was at the start of the season.
David Perron, Daniel Winnik, Ian Cole, Max Lapierre and Lovejoy have all been added since the start of the regular season while only giving up Rob Klinkhammer, some draft picks, Zach Sill , Bortuzzo, Marcel Goc and Despres. In the end, that's a win, especially when you look at their bottom-six forward group that is light years better than what they were putting on the ice in the playoffs a year ago.
If they are willing to trust Derrick Pouliot in a top-four defense role alongside Christian Ehrhoff when he returns their defense could be one of the most talented ones in the league with Kris Letang and Paul Martin leading the top-pairing"
"Lovejoy has missed significant time with an injury this year, but he has been a solid performer for the Ducks when healthy. He has 11 points in 40 games this year while averaging 18:33 of ice time. He returns to the Penguins after three years in Anaheim.
Lovejoy joined the Penguins as an unrestricted free agent and saw stints in the NHL lineup between 2008-09 and 2012-13 before being dealt to the Ducks. By the way, the Penguins sent Lovejoy to Anaheim for a fifth-round draft pick back then.
In 248 career NHL games, Lovejoy has 64 points.
This is an interesting deal considering how high the Penguins had been on Despres over the years as a former first-round pick. He's also just 23 years old and still growing into his game.
Despres has finally been a full-time NHLer this season and has played well enough in a somewhat limited role. In 59 games he has 17 points, while averaging 16:23 per game. With several defensemen in the prospect pipeline, perhaps they viewed Despres as expendable, but he's far from a finished product in his career.
The Ducks get even younber on defense, but also get a tad bigger with Despres. He's also just a bit cheaper than Lovejoy as both are still under contract next season.
The Penguins are obviously going for the Stanley Cup this year and having a veteran with a little extra experience like Lovejoy might help. But this is a pretty steep price for the organization to pay to essentially acquire a defenseman whose biggest difference – and this is important to many teams – was his handedness. Despres is a left-hand shot, while Lovejoy is a righty.
After all the time the Penguins invested in Despres to extract value from him as a former first-round pick, it seems like a strage time to pull the chute on him, even if they're gaining a more experienced player in Lovejoy.
http://www.cbssports.com/nhl/eye-on...uire-ben-lovejoy-from-ducks-for-simon-despres
