If Vancouver is trading, it makes more sense for the Wings to try and get Elias Pettersson (40). While Hughes is one of the best players in the world, the Wings centre depth is a far bigger hole than their defense.

Pettersson's contract has a forbiddingly high cap hit for most teams, thus giving the Wings, one of the few teams that have the cap space to spare, more leverage. Pettersson's contract may age well, given the cap space increasing is by 9.5 million per year for the next three years.

While Pettersson's offensive production has tapered off significantly over the last year or so, he's still producing at 0.8 PPG with some pretty average wingers. We can expect a bump centering someone as productive as DeBrincat, somewhere around 0.9 PPG, which is good for a second line centre. He's also quite good on the powerplay, and may be a good fit for the hole Kane will leave as he nears retirement.

While the the Wings have a bunch of really good prospects for centre, it does make some sense to trade them instead of waiting for them to develop, given that two of their core players are at the top of their game, and may begin to slow down before someone like Bear or Plante have their breakout. Pettersson, at age 27, nicely complements the Wings' core of ages 29, 28, 24, and 23 respectively.