Pittsburgh reportedly retained $250,000 of Hagelin's $3,666,000 salary in the deal, according to TSN's Pierre LeBrun.
Pearson managed only one point in 17 contests with the Kings in 2018-19, while Hagelin mustered a goal and two assists in 16 games.
Hagelin was a member of the Penguins' Stanley Cup championship squads in 2015-16 and 2016-17. Pearson helped the Kings win the title in 2013-14.
After sweeping a four-game Canadian road trip in October, the Penguins have won only one of their last seven games. The Kings have lost three of their last four since firing head coach John Stevens and replacing him with interim bench boss Willie Desjardins.
The Pittsburgh Penguins inked general manager Jim Rutherford to a three-year contract extension Wednesday that will keep him with the team through the 2021-22 season.
The 69-year-old is in his 25th year as an NHL general manager and his fifth with the Penguins.
During his tenure with Pittsburgh, he's helped build the team into a perennial contender, with four 100-plus-point seasons and back-to-back Stanley Cups in 2016 and 2017.
"We think Jim Rutherford is one of the best general managers in all of sports and, during his tenure in Pittsburgh, arguably the best GM in the NHL," Penguins co-owners Mario Lemieux and Ron Burkle said in a statement. "His goal every year is to win the Stanley Cup and that kind of commitment to excellence is what drives us all."
Rutherford won his first Stanley Cup with the Carolina Hurricanes in 2006. Stan Bowman of the Chicago Blackhawks is the only other GM to win three championships in the salary-cap era. Rutherford ranks eighth all time among general managers in both wins (850) and games managed (1,834).
The Edmonton Oilers entered Tuesday on a four-game losing streak, scoring just six goals during that stretch. In an attempt to spark the slumping offense, head coach Todd McLellan reunited Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl on the top line, and it paid off.
Edmonton's dynamic duo combined for six points in the Oilers' 6-2 win over the Montreal Canadiens on Tuesday night. McDavid had three helpers, while Draisaitl notched a goal and two assists - all of which came at even strength.
Drake Caggiula, the third member of Edmonton's revamped top line, shouldn't go without mention. He picked up a goal on three shots, added three hits, and was plus-3 in the contest.
McDavid and Draisaitl have had plenty of success playing together in the past - most notably during the 2016-17 season - but the Oilers split them up this season with the intention of rolling out a more balanced offense.
It's safe to assume the Oilers will line up the same way Saturday against the provincial rival Calgary Flames. From there, the recipe to keeping McDavid and Draisaitl on the same line is probably quite simple: win.
As general managers filed out of the NHL's Canadian headquarters on Tuesday, wrapping up a five-hour meeting, it became abundantly clear that homework - not new rule recommendations - had been doled out by the league's bigwigs.
"What you do is take it home and digest a lot of it," Los Angeles Kings GM Rob Blake said, before adding that "other things will be added to the agenda for March" when the meetings commence again in Florida.
While no major rule changes were discussed (a rarity for a league known for its nitpicking), a number of less pressing matters were broached before and after Tuesday's meeting.
On goalie equipment:
Colin Campbell, the league's senior executive vice-president of hockey operations, opened his media availability by joking about making the goalie equipment larger and the nets smaller in an effort to counteract the uptick in goal scoring through the first month of the 2018-19 season.
In reality, despite several goaltenders raising a stink about an increase in bruising due to a decrease in the size of their equipment, the NHL remains satisfied with its offseason adjustments.
"We did discuss the fact that some goalies were complaining. In some instances, the complaints went with their performances too," Campbell said, not naming names. "There are forwards and there are defensemen that get bruises when they get hit with 100-mile-an-hour shots. We brought that to the GMs' attention. They had no concern with it."
Year after year, the increase in goals has been minor, with this year's NHL featuring one extra goal every five games. Still, the perpetual tweaking of rules and regulations, coupled with a seismic shift toward skill and speed, has affected the game on a grander scale.
Heading into Tuesday's schedule, the average game has featured 6.14 goals, up from 5.44 in 2012-13.
"The players' association is totally on board with it," Campbell said, referring to the remodeled goalie equipment, namely the much-maligned chest protector. "I think that (alteration) and a lot of the rule changes have opened the game up quite a bit."
On European expansion:
Deputy commissioner Bill Daly energized the NHL news cycle last week when he told TSN that the NHL may one day house franchises - ideally, a whole division - in Europe.
"The number of our players who are born and trained in Europe and add to the talent level of the National Hockey League, the interest in the sport - in a number of countries in Europe - make it almost inevitable that at some point the National Hockey League will have teams in Europe," Daly said, with NHLPA executive director Donald Fehr basically echoing Daly's optimism in a press briefing on Monday.
Patrick McDermott / National Hockey League / Getty
There's a lot to unpack here. The idea of expanding to another continent would be no small task. (By the way, this is just an idea at this point, so don't expect the unveiling of the Helsinki Huskies any time soon.)
Some surface-level questions to consider: Would the NHL's quality of play diminish with the integration of additional teams and players? Would the impact and cost of travel outweigh the benefits of expansion? And would the logical landing spots - Helsinki, Prague, and Stockholm, to name a few - be able to support NHL arenas and clubs?
"I don't foresee any huge issues," Capitals GM Brian MacLellan told theScore, referring to the travel aspect. "I mean, teams will go over and play a few games, come back, and play on the East Coast. It could probably work … There's a good balance between all of the European players (and non-Europeans). And there are cities that are following their guys passionately. I think it makes sense, big picture-wise."
It's not a completely foreign concept, of course. For years, the NHL's held exhibition and regular-season games overseas, including matches this fall in China, Switzerland, Germany, Sweden, and Finland.
Actually stationing a division in Europe someday would be an entirely different animal. If the NHL can act quick enough, though, it could capture something incredibly unique.
"We're the first team in pro sports in Vegas," Canadiens GM Marc Bergevin said. "I wouldn't be shocked if the NHL's the first (league) that goes to Europe."
On another draft:
Speaking of expansion, the NHL's almost certainly off to Seattle. It's expected that a vote at an early-December board of governors meeting in Georgia will seal the deal.
Campbell noted that the 30 teams eligible to participate in another expansion draft - Vegas would be exempt from the process - will be given a year's notice of the date. It may be the summer of 2020, or the summer of 2021, depending on the progress of arena construction in Seattle.
Whether it's ultimately 17 or 29 months away, teams are already mapping out possible scenarios that may unfold. The rule book for the Seattle draft, after all, projects to be just as advantageous as the one that gifted Vegas a roster full of contributors.
"You always look at it, but we're here to win hockey games also," Bergevin said of keeping tabs on which players might quality for exposure down the road. "We have to manage winning hockey games and exposing young players. At the end of the day, I'm not going to hold (rookie Jesperi) Kotkaniemi back because of an expansion draft.”
Blake admitted that the Kings are viewing the next expansion draft through a different lens simply because it's Round 2. It's familiar. MacLellan shares a similar mindset.
"I think it's important to look at what happened last time. We'll go over the decisions that were made by everybody and how Vegas used their leverage," said the Stanley Cup-winning GM who lost Nate Schmidt to the Golden Knights. "I think you learn from some of the decisions that were made and maybe some new stuff comes up on this one, you don't know."
John Matisz is theScore's National Hockey Writer. You can find him on Twitter @matiszjohn.
Put Matt Cullen's name atop the list of players who weren't happy seeing noted repeat offender Tom Wilson get his 20-game suspension reduced to 14 on Tuesday.
"When the next CBA comes up, that’s something we (should) address," Cullen told Jason Mackey of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, speaking of the lengthy appeal process. "I don’t think anybody is real happy with it."
Wilson had already served 16 games of his suspension, so he's eligible to play immediately. He also saved $378,048.78 in lost salary.
There may be a high level of animosity against Wilson in the Penguins' locker room - at least more so than others around the league - given that the two sides have met in the playoffs three years in a row. Wilson delivered a pair of questionable hits on Zach Aston-Reese and Brian Dumoulin during last year's second-round matchup.
"I don’t think it’s a good look for our league, for our game to need to go to appeals," Cullen said. "You’d like the headlines to be about the play on the ice and the players, not the other (stuff) going on outside of the game.
"I think most guys probably don’t love that - that it got reduced in that manner as far as going to appeal after appeal."
The NHL was certainly hoping the lengthy suspension would make Wilson think twice before delivering another questionable hit, but Cullen doesn't believe it'll affect his reckless on-ice demeanor.
"Honestly I don’t know how much any of that really changes a player," Cullen said. "I think it has to come from within your organization, people working with somebody to change.
"Obviously it’s the only way the league can deal with it, but something like that, I think that has to be within the organization as far as putting the pressure on a guy to change the way he plays."
The Penguins and Capitals will square off Dec. 19 in Washington.
