Petry Deal Solidifies Habs' D for next two seasons

[radoran]

https://www.nhl.com/news/jeff-petry-signs-4-year-deal-with-montreal/c-319184574?sf129362970=1

 

4Y/$25M deal ($6.25 AAV).

 

Sets the Habs' D with seven signed for the next two seasons.

 

Never was a big fan of Petry, but he's put up three straight 40+ seasons and the Habs seem to like him.

[JR Ewing]

That reminds me... Time to put a picture of Craig MacTavish's face back up on my dartboard.

 

[yave1964]

23 hours ago, JR Ewing said:

That reminds me... Time to put a picture of Craig MacTavish's face back up on my dartboard.

 

  I had limited experience watching Petry, usually against the Wings, he had a propensity early in his career for tipping the puck into his own net apparently, as i literally saw him do this three times!! Even then, you could tell he had talent. It took until he moved to the East Coast where i can see him play regularly to appreciate him, he is better than i thought he was, better even than i thought he could be. Perfect number three, second pair QB on the power play guy who can bump up to number one when Weber makes one of his usual trips to the IR. Damn fine player who i totally missed on based off the small sample size of watching him play poorly against Detroit. Who knows, maybe having Dan in the stands watching screwed up his mojo in those games or something.

[JR Ewing]

@yave1964 The Oilers have had an amazing capacity for bleeding talent.

 

[Math]

On 9/25/2020 at 7:17 PM, JR Ewing said:

That reminds me... Time to put a picture of Craig MacTavish's face back up on my dartboard.

 

 

To train live, go and make a trip in Switzerland: he's our head coach in Lausanne now and the season is about to begin.

 

(No need -- yet -- to quarantine when flying there: Canada it still listed as a "safe" country)

[JR Ewing]

It's kind of funny how this can all work:

 

https://oilersnation.com/2020/09/27/former-edmonton-oilers-gm-craig-mactavish-doesnt-regret-much-but-trading-jeff-petry-is-one/

Former Edmonton Oilers GM Craig MacTavish doesn’t regret much, but trading Jeff Petry is one

September 27, 2020, 9:00 AM | Zach Laing

 

If you haven’t heard the news, former Edmonton Oilers defenceman Jeff Petry signed a four-year, $6.25-million AAV deal yesterday.

In 2015, then Oilers GM Craig MacTavish traded Petry to the Montreal Canadiens, who he just inked his fresh deal with, for second and fifth-round picks.

 

In a candid interview with Sportsnet’s Eric Engels, MacTavish expressed his remorse over moving Petry.

 

    “At the end of the day it was a pretty substantial mistake that I made not signing him to a long-term deal,” MacTavish said from his home in Lausanne, Switzerland via telephone. “He’s a great person, great character, hard-working guy and he’s played great. He’s a top-four defenceman all day long at this level and maybe slightly higher than that, and it wasn’t lost on us the improvement that he was making in his game. It wasn’t lost on ownership, either. We knew we might lose our best defenceman and that’s what happened. There’s a lot of questions obviously around that, but, to me, I give him all the credit in the world. He became a dominant player in the last half of the season that year. I’ve always regretted not signing him. I don’t regret a lot of things, but that’s one of them.”

And let me tell you, the optics of this are… not good. We all knew that it was a bad trade at the time given Petry’s skillset as a right-shot defenceman on a team with few of those.

 

“We knew we might lose our best defenceman and that’s what happened,” is the quote that really jumps out to me. Why would an organization trade their best defenceman for magic beans? Did Petry not want to re-sign in Edmonton? Did he ask to be dealt?

Nevertheless, it was a bad trade at the time and still was, in hindsight, a bad trade. Petry has looked really good as a top-four defenceman and his scoring has doubled from .25 PPG in Edmonton to .46 PPG in Montreal.

 

Things have managed to sort themselves out in Edmonton, however. The second-round pick was traded to the New York Rangers in a package for goaltender Cam Talbot, who helped the Oilers on their monumental 2017 playoff run. The fifth-round pick wasn’t moved, and the Oilers used the pick to draft Caleb Jones, who is coming into his own as a fine young NHL defenceman.

 

----------------------------

 

@yave1964 You may remember how upset I was at the time, leading up to trade deadline day, because it was obvious that MacTavish was going to deal Petry. I wasn't upset because he's some sort of Norris candidate, but because he was a good and solid defenseman with a range of skills, and there wasn't a replacement for him anywhere in sight.

 

And that is a problem the Oilers have had over the many years with their GMs: the repeated tendency to trade players when there isn't anybody who can play those minutes. In fact, the very first thing MacT did after getting the job was to draft Leon Draisaitl, assume he was ready to be 2C and then immediately trade Sam Gagner for Teddy Purcell, who had only 1 full NHL season left in him and was (in a league getting quicker by the week) the slowest thing on skates.

 

[yave1964]

@JR Ewing

 

I remember how upset you were. Truth is, i think he has turned out to be quite the hockey player, muuuuuch better than i thought he would be and let me offer kudos for the prescience you showed with the player Petry turned into.

 

 Teddy Purcell, heh. Absolutely lousy player, you could time him with a sundial, lol. He is a lot of fun when he is a guest on Spittin' Chicklets with Biz and Whitney and very self deprecating about his career.