While you were sleeping, two Canadian teams got into the trading frenzy once again. As expected, the Toronto Maple Leafs moved Alexi Ponikarovsky to the Pittsburgh Penguins for prospect forward Luca Caputi and Martin Skoula. Further up the standings, the Montreal Canadiens traded RW Matt D'Agostini to St. Louis for C Aaron Palushaj.
*Instant Analysis: While the latter trade is inconsequential, the former is huge at this point in the season. Ponikarovsky is a big body, who is on pace to put up back-to-back 60+ point seasons on a sub-par team. He'll play alongside Evgeni Malkin and Ruslan Fedotenko in Pittsburgh, who are certainly gearing up for another Stanley Cup run. Kudos to Ray Shero once again - he seems to have a knack for picking up impact wingers right before the deadline. Conversely, I think Brian Burke pulled the trigger on this one too soon. He'll ultimately flip Skoula for a draft pick, but to get only Caputi in return for The Poni Express is simply not enough, nor is it what Toronto needs. They already have enough "unknowns" up front. By that I mean, they have a plethora of young forwards (Stalberg, Bozak, Hanson, Mitchell, etc.) on whom the jury is still out.
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