Pens Points: Ron Hextall’s wild weekend revamps the defense

OK, if you missed a little then you missed a lot this weekend. Based on the traffic, probably not. Let’s get everyone caught up anyways..

The Penguins sent John Marino to New Jersey on Saturday for youngster Ty Smith and a third round pick. [Pensburgh]

And then Pittsburgh traded Mike Matheson and a fourth round pick to Montreal for Jeff Petry and Ryan Poehling. [Pensburgh]

Which, really you need to split the two trades apart and mix it up to actually figure out the logic of why Ron Hextall did what he did. [Pensburgh]

Petry had requested a trade from Montreal back over the border to be closer to his wife and four kids in Michigan and is very pleased for ending up in PIttsburgh. [Post-Gazette]

Digging more into how the Pens can unlock the most out of Poehling. [Pensburgh]

And also the challenge of fixing a talented but problematic Ty Smith. [Pensburgh]

The Pens’ official website weighs in on the reshape of the blueline that has seen Petry, Smith and Jan Rutta added in recent days. [Penguins.com]

Looking at another angle, our SBN Montreal blog said of Matheson: “Montreal’s blue line also represents an opportunity for Matheson to show that he can become more than he was in Pittsburgh; that he can play on the power play, on the penalty kill, and that he can serve as that 20-minute-plus top-pairing player”. Matheson? Killing penalties? Should we...should we tell them??? [Habs Eyes on the Prize]

A Canadian look of Montreal making the most of a less than ideal circumstance to move Petry for a useful player in Matheson. [Sportsnet]

In other news, yesterday Kasperi Kapanen elected to file for salary arbitration (as expected). [Tribune Review]

And in a related story, Toronto avoided arbitration with Pierre Engvall with a one-year, $2.5 million salary. Engvall had 15G+20A last season, giving the Pens a nice comparable data point for the Kapanen case coming off his 11G+21A season. [Pension Plan Puppets]

A full list of the 24 players across the league who filed for arbitration. [NHL on NBC]

A look at the Metropolitan division off-season moves from the NJD perspective. [All About the Jersey]

Are the Colorado Avalanche still players to bring back Nazem Kadri? It could be possible to bring him back, but would come at the cost of sending out other players to make it work. [Mile High Hockey]

Pierre-Luc Dubois seems to have an expiration date in Winnipeg as a restricted free agent, but his future remains unknown. [Arctic Ice Hockey]

Jonathan Toews and Patrick Kane have one year left on their respective contracts and Chicago is in a rebuild. Even their general manager doesn’t know how this is going to work. [NHL.com]