The penguins moved out to a right-footed defender early Saturday when they send John Marino to New Jersey. Looks like he will be replaced by Jeff Petry because Pittsburgh got veterans with the center Ryan Poehling from Montreal in exchange for blueliner Mike Matheson and the fourth round pick in 2023. Both teams have confirmed the swap.
The 34-year-old is going through a difficult season with Montreal that has seen him struggle as their top defender in their absence Shea Weber. He struggled very hard to start the new year when in the first three months of the year he had only two assists in 27 games. However, Petry’s performance improved after a change of coach made Martin St. Louis took over the bench and he played much better, picking up 21 points in the final three months of the season. Overall, Petry finished the year with six goals and 21 assists in 68 games, his lowest total since 2015-16, his first season with Canada.
Around the middle of the year, he also asked to trade for family reasons. Although he was supposed to move into the trading deadline and again at the draft, it took some time for the move to materialize.
Petry has three years left on his $6.25 million AAV contract and Montreal GM Kent Hughes announced earlier this week that he is not interested in withholding any pay to facilitate the transaction. While Marino’s move freed up about $3.5 million in cap flexibility, that wasn’t enough to absorb Petry’s entire deal, which prompted Matheson to include a swap. change. Petry has been speculated to be a possible substitute for Kris Letang if the veteran is released in free agency. Instead, Letang signed a six-year deal and Petry will now help form a quality one-two punch to the right side of their defender with Petry’s AAV checking just above Letang to turn him in. He became the highest-paid blueliner on the team.
Matheson used to be a top defender during his career with Florida but his stock started to drop a few years ago, which led to him being ousted for Patric Hornqvist. The move has worked well for the 28-year-old as he has had an impressive career year between 2021-22, scoring 11 goals and 20 assists in 74 games while scoring just less than 19 minutes per night. He also worked quite effectively for the Penguins in the knockout stages, scoring one goal and five assists in seven games to lead all Pittsburgh blues in scoring while averaging over 25. minutes per contest.
Matheson has four years left on AAV’s $4.875 million contract in a somewhat hefty deal with his payoff increasing to $6.5 million per season in each of the final three seasons. He instantly became the player with the longest contract with the Canadian team and their highest paid. He will probably replace Alexander Romanov on the Montreal depth chart as the youngster was swapped back in draft for the Islanders for the 13th overall pick then moved to Chicago for center Kirby Dach.
For Poehling, the 23-year-old was Montreal’s first choice back in 2017 (25th overall) and spent most of last season with the Canadaiens, scoring nine goals and eight assists in 57 games in when averaging just over 12 minutes per game. He will likely have a similar role in Pittsburgh’s bottom six in 2022-23. Poehling has signed a minimum league contract for next season and will be a restricted free agent next summer.
With the move, Pittsburgh now has just under $2 million in cap space with the RFA winger Kasperi Kapanen still to sign. That’s not enough for the 25-year-old, so it looks like GM Ron Hextall has another move to try to make. Meanwhile, Montreal frees up a little over $2 million with this swap, giving them over $2.3 million in the cap room with Dach being their most notable RFA in need of a deal. new.
Contract information and allowed limits of CapFriendly.
Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman is first report that Petry is headed to Pittsburgh. Daily Faceoff’s Frank Seravalli is first report commercial details.
