It’s better to keep Petry, give him another chance

The Edmonton Oilers did the right thing signing defenceman Jeff Petry on Monday, but a one-year deal is hardly a ringing endorsement of the player.

The short-term is hardly a surprise, though, given Petry’s been the subject of numerous trade rumours recently. The whispers reached a roar after TSN’s Ryan Rishaug, an Oilers insider, went on Team 1260 radio last Thursday to say: “There is a very good chance Jeff Petry gets traded.”

The notion is that the Oilers have plenty of depth on defence with new signings like Nikita Nikitin and Mark Fayne, and that Petry is too erratic to be trusted as a top NHL defenceman, so Edmonton might well be OK to move Petry for a decent second line centre.

I don’t buy this line of thinking, but it is fair to say that Petry’s critics have a point. The 26-year-old defenceman has his warts on defence. For instance, in 2013-14, Petry made more mistakes, 47 in total, that contributed to even-strength goals against than any other Oilers defenceman since 2008-09 (the year I started to count up these goalcausing mistakes).

The next worst Oilers defenceman in 2013-14 was Justin Schultz, with 42 such mistakes, then Andrew Ference, 30, and Anton Belov, 25.

This kind of mistake sticks in your head as a fan. If you see them enough, you start to think the player is weak, and that’s certainly the case with Petry and his critics.

But there are a few other issues and numbers that should convince the Oilers to stick with Petry long-term.

First off, Oilers coach Dallas Eakins trusted Petry and Schultz with far more minutes at even-strength than any other Oilers defencemen. Eakins also trusted Petry to face the toughest competition that the difficult Western Conference offers. On the list of the 25 forwards Petry faced most often are Ryan Getzlaf, Corey Perry, Daniel Sedin, Joe Thornton, Jeff Carter, Jonathan Toews and Ryan Kesler.

Petry was asked to do a lot by the Oilers, too much maybe. Perhaps if he’d have had an easier job, he would have made mistakes on only 25 or 30 goals against, and many fans and pundits wouldn’t be nearly so down on him.

This past year, Petry also spent a lot of time holding the hand of raw rookie Martin Marincin. In fact, Petry was constantly on the ice with defencemen, wingers and centres who struggled every bit as much as he did on defence, if not more. Giving up on Petry because he struggled a bit when asked to do a ton makes little sense.

Petry is only 26, and heading into his peak years, not out of them. He’s 6-foot-3, 200 lb. and skates well for an NHLD-man. He’s played 2 36 NHL games now, giving him enough experience.

Petry was no big point scorer — it’s not his game to charge into the slot — but he consistently moved the puck well.

This year, he made 191 passes or shots that contributed to scoring chances at even strength in2013-14, second only for Oilers D-men to Justin Schultz’s 208.

Expressed as a rate over 15 minutes of even-strength play —which is about the length of time the average player plays in a game — Schultz contributed to 2.2 scoring chances per 15 and Petry to 2.0 per 15. By comparison, Mark Fraser, the worst puck mover on the team, contributed to just 1.2 per 15.

Along with making 191 contributions to even-strength scoring chances, Petry made 188 mistakes on chances against. That’s a high rate of mistakes — but when you balance Petry’s sometimes erratic defensive play with his strong passing, you find a player who played passable hockey much more often than most of his teammates did against tough competition.

Edmonton finally has a blue-line group that might be able to compete at the NHL level, but Petry would likely be the best player in the group, ahead of Fayne, Nikitin and Schultz.

With this new contract, Petry appears to have one more chance to impress Oilers management.