The Athletic’s Max Bultman discusses the Jeff Petry trade this morning as it applies to the Petry family.
Jeff’s father, Detroit Tigers analyst and alumnus Dan Petry, was aware that his son wanted to be flipped to the Red Wings after Montreal re-acquired Jeff for assets in the Erik Karlsson-to-Pittsburgh deal last month, but Dan had to keep the trade-in-the-works a secret for a week:
“As much as I would have liked to have said something to them like, ‘Hey, be on the lookout, this is in the works’ and everything,” Dan Petry said, “I couldn’t say anything.”
Fortunately, he didn’t have to wait long. Nine days after Petry was dealt back to Montreal on Aug. 6, he got the call he and his family had been waiting for: The Canadiens were sending him home to Detroit in exchange for defenseman Gustav Lindström and a conditional fourth-round draft pick in 2025.
Jeff Petry had allowed himself to think about this idea over the course of his career. He had grown up watching the Red Wings, with a Red Wings-themed bedroom, playing out in his mind the idea of one day wearing their jersey. Then he reached the NHL, and the possibility became even more real.
“You keep thinking in your head, ‘OK, when is that opportunity going to come? Can it come?’” he said. “And for me, I always thought about, OK, wanting to play one year here maybe at the end of my career, or whenever the opportunity came.”
Continued (paywall) with discussion of Jeff’s hockey-playing youth and upbringing…
