Ducks Acquire David Perron, Adam Clendening From Penguins for Carl Hagelin

The Anaheim Ducks dispatching the Central Division leading Dallas Stars with another impressive effort isn't the only news story to come late out of Orange County.

Less than three hours after the Ducks held the NHL's highest scoring team to just a pair of goals on 24 shots, it was announced that Anaheim has traded forward Carl Hagelin to the Pittsburgh Penguins in exchange for forward David Perron and defenseman Adam Clendening.

Perron is headed for unrestricted free agency, while Clendening will be a restricted free agent in the offseason, with Anaheim taking on just $ 0.216 mil. in additional salary this season in making the move. Perron is a 27-year old, nine-year NHL veteran who was drafted 26th overall by the St. Louis Blues in 2007, and has played 542 regular season games with 133 goals and 179 assists. Clendening is a 23-year old right handed shot that was drafted 36th overall by the Chicago Blackhawks in 2011, and has appeared in just 30 NHL games since making his debut last season in Chicago and being sent to the Vancouver Canucks (for Gustav Forsling) and then later packaged with Nick Bonino and a draft pick for Brandon Sutter and a draft pick.

Hagelin was acquired with a second round pick from the New York Rangers in the offseason in exchange for Emerson Etem (who is now with the Canucks after being acquired in a trade for Nicklas Jensen and a sixth round draft pick) and second and sixth draft picks, and immediately signed to a four year, $4 mil. AAV deal. The forward struggled offensively in his 43 games in an Anaheim sweater, putting up just four goals and eight assists, and going through scoreless stretches of eight, seven, six, and five games over the course of his tenure. Though recently settling in to the second line with Ryan Kesler and Jakob Silfverberg, he spent the early parts of the season bouncing up and down the lineup.

Be sure to check out the Pittsburgh point of view on the deal over at Pensburgh- "Penguins Acquire Carl Hagelin From The Anaheim Ducks". Also, have a look at our breakdown and projection for who Perron is as a player and how he'll fit with the Ducks.

Career Stats + Visuals

Perron

Clendening

Statistics via hockeydb, HERO and WARRIOR tables via OwnThePuck.

Financial Implications

First, the raw numbers to consider in easy to digest tweet form:

To PIT: Hagelin ($4M, 2019 UFA) To ANA: David Perron ($3.812M, 2016 UFA), Adam Clendening (0.760M, 2016 RFA)

— NHLnumbers (@NHLnumbers) January 16, 2016

While Anaheim takes on additional money this season, and has just over $7.8 mil. in cap space remaining per NHLnumbers, moving Hagelin's contract is big for a couple reasons. First and foremost, it moves a 27-year old asset who would've been locked in with the team until 2019. Both of the acquisitions will come off the cap in the offseason, as well as Shawn Horcoff (UFA), Chris Stewart (UFA), Jiri Sekac (RFA), Rickard Rakell (RFA), Mike Santorelli (UFA), Hampus Lindholm (RFA), Sami Vatanen (RFA), Korbinian Holzer (UFA), and Frederik Andersen (RFA).

This will leave the Ducks with just over $19.8 mil. in NHL based cap space in the offseason, with seven forwards, six defensemen, and one goalie already locked in for the next season. Depending on what Anaheim does come closer to the trade deadline (which we speculated about in this piece on a report earlier this week by Elliotte Freidman), even more space could be opened up or those slotted positions for the coming season altered.

In any case, with the play of the likes of Rakell, Vatanen, and Lindholm, having an additional four million dollars in play to keep as many as possible will be one of the continually developing stories to watch for the remainder of this season and in to the offseason.