Jeff Petry’s return to Montreal was rather brief.
In a move that came as no surprise, the Canadiens confirmed on Tuesday that the recently acquired Pittsburgh Penguins defenseman was traded again.
This time, Petry will take the direction of Detroit and his native Michigan. In return, the Canadian gets another defenseman, Gustav Lindström, from the Red Wings, as well as a conditional fourth-round pick in the 2025 draft.
Obviously, this new marriage between Petry and the Canadiens was not going to last, since it was quite public in nature that the Petry clan was eager to get out of Montreal at the time of the trade that moved him to the Penguins in first place, a little over a year ago.
This time, the Canadian sends him to Detroit while absorbing 50% of his salary, which is equivalent to some $2.3 million per year for two years. Kent Hughes also believed that the Canadian was on Petry’s no-trade list, which was not the case.
But that didn’t mean, either, that Petry wanted to come back to Montreal.
“The idea was not to bring Jeff back to Montreal, because he had already asked to be traded, admitted the Montreal GM on Tuesday. Ideally, we would have traded it right away, but it took us a week. […] It probably took a little longer than expected. »
According to information from the specialized site CapFriendly, and once all the calculations are completed, Petry’s salary, as paid by the Red Wings, will amount to $2,343,750 per season. In all, the Canadiens therefore have about $5 million in “dead” money, if we add Petry’s contract to those of two other missing ones, Joel Edmundson and Karl Alzner.
On the ice, the departure of Petry makes it possible to clean up the defensemen a little, the same kind of cleaning that was also done among the forwards with this three-team trade last week.
“We had 16 forwards, so ideally we wanted to trade one or two forwards, Rem Pitlick or Mike Hoffman,” admitted Kent Hughes. Mike, because of his age, and Rem, I think he felt that we had too many attackers with us, and that his chances of being in the team were slim. So he asked to be traded. »
In goal, there will also be choices that will have to be made shortly.
Along with Casey DeSmith, also acquired from the Pittsburgh Penguins on August 6, and including Cayden Primeau, that brings to four the number of goalies who could aspire to a position with the club in September. They are added to Samuel Montembeault and Jake Allen.
“Casey was in a four-way situation in Pittsburgh, and he comes here, and he’s also in a four-way situation,” admitted Kent Hughes. So I told him to be patient. The idea is not to bury him in the American League. We will continue to look at the options to exchange it, or do something to change things a little. But you have to be patient with the goalkeeper market, because it doesn’t move that fast. »
Lindström is a former second-round pick in the 2017 draft. He has taken part in the last four seasons, without ever being able to play a full one. His best harvest was 13 points in 63 games, in 2021-2022.
“Our pro scouts like him, they think he’s a smart defenseman who can get the puck around,” Hughes said of him. He can still improve, and at 24, he’s young. We hope he can come here to add something to our team, and we’ll see where that takes us. »
