Red Wings Trade for Jeff Petry

The Detroit Red Wings acquire Jeff Petry for Gustav Lindstrom and a conditional 2025 4th round draft pick

The Detroit Red Wings announced the acquisition of defenseman Jeff Petry this afternoon, arriving via Montreal (with 50% of his cap hit retained) in exchange for Gustav Lindstrom and a 2025 fourth round draft pick (whichever of Boston or Montreal's, both of which Detroit had previously acquired, is later).  

As our friends at PuckPedia note, Detroit adds a net of $1,393,750 to its cap sheet, leaving the Wings with a shade under $6 million in cap space remaining.

Petry has been a rumored Red Wing trade target for several years.  He was born in Ann Arbor and grew up in Farmington Hills.  Petry's father Dan pitched for the Tigers for 11 seasons, winning 119 games in that time. The elder Petry was also a member of the 1984 Tigers team that won the World Series.  

Thanks to those local ties, a hometown reunion always felt in the cards for a player who has been in trade rumors throughout the latter stages of his career.

The move to Detroit marks the third time Petry's been traded in the last two summers.  First, in July 2022, Petry and Ryan Poehling went from Montreal to Pittsburgh in exchange for Mike Matheson and a 2023 fourth rounder.  Then, earlier this summer, Petry was sent back from Pittsburgh to Montreal as part of the robust deal that brought Erik Karlsson from San Jose to the Penguins.

Petry is in the third year of a four-year deal he signed with Montreal in September of 2020, carrying an AAV of $6.25 million.  However, the Penguins retained 25% on that contract when they shipped Petry back to Montreal, so with the Canadiens retaining another 50%, he will count for just $2,343,750 against the Red Wings' cap.

Lindstrom might have contributed along the Detroit blue line this season, but he was more than likely on the outside looking in by the time it came to the Wings' opening night defense corps.  Throw in the lesser of two surplus fourth rounders in the draft after next, and your talking about a scant trade return.

Two more seasons of Petry at under $2.5 million is also a modest cost, so the question begs: What does the 35-year-old have left in the tank?

Per this isolated impact chart from HockeyViz.com's Micah Blake McCurdy, Petry was a strong defender last year for the Penguins but also an offensive black hole.  Meanwhile, he had a poor ratio of penalties drawn to penalties taken and average impacts on converting plays in the offensive zone.

With that in mind, Petry is far from a game-changing acquisition for the Red Wing blue line, but it wasn't that long ago that he was an important player in the Canadiens' unlikely run to the 2020 Stanley Cup Final.  Detroit wants to improve defensively, and if there's one thing Petry still does well, it's defend.

Between the acquisitions in successive summers of Ben Chiarot, Olli Maatta, Justin Holl, Shayne Gostisbehere, and now Petry, it's obvious that Steve Yzerman wants veteran defensemen on his blue line—whether it's to contribute in the short term or to force young defenders like Simon Edvinsson to earn their eventual NHL roster spots.

For Edvinsson, Petry does represent another player to beat out to earn ice time at the NHL level in the coming season.  Still, Lindstrom would have competed for those same minutes without the trade.

While this is speculative, I could also imagine that this deal was about Montreal general manager Kent Hughes (and maybe to some extent Steve Yzerman also) doing a favor to Petry by sending him back to his hometown team to close out his career.

At the end of the day, this doesn't figure to be a defining transaction for "the Yzerplan," and it came without much of a cap hit or acquisition cost to contend with.  Still, Petry may be able to provide some value with his defensive solidity as Detroit continues its march back toward the playoffs.