Breaking: Canadiens to trade top defenseman to Penguins
Just hours after ESPN's Kevin Weekes announced that the Pittsburgh Penguins had swung a deal with the New Jersey Devils, swapping top-4 defensemen, Sportsnet's Elliotte Friedman dropped a bomb on Twitter, confirming that the Montreal Canadiens are finalizing a deal to send Jeff Petry to the Pens as well.
The Penguins came into the offseason having locked up Kris Letang an Evgeni Malkin to new deals and now have made a pair of moves to address needs on the blueline. On top of that, the Pens also inked former Lightning defender Jan Rutta to a 3-year deal worth $2.75M per season as well.
With these moves, the Pens have 8 NHL defensemen. The newly-acquired Ty Smith is waivers exempt, so he can be sent down to the AHL without having to pass through waivers, but something has to give here. It's likely that we see the Pens offload yet another body from their blueline at some point soon here.
Petry has 3 years remaining on his current deal, which carries a $6.25M AAV.
***UPDATE***
The full deal will be Jeff Petry and Ryan Poehling for Mike Matheson and a draft pick, per DFO's Frank Seravalli.
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