Things are eerily quiet right now regarding Contract Talks between the Oilers and key RFAs Jeff Petry and Justin Schultz. There is virtually no news about the state of either negotiation. Nothing from major news outlets, local media, or even much in the way of speculation on social media. It’s just silent out there. Today I’m going to focus more on Petry.
The near complete blackout on news for these negotiations doesn’t mean anything one way or the other, but it’s easy to see why the Oilers would have difficulty coming to an agreement on value with both of these Defensemen. You see, from my perspective the Oilers said 1 thing and did something completely different all year long. They said Justin Schultz was their top Defenseman but they played Petry against the most difficult competition and gave him the most difficult zone starts. Now that it’s time to settle on money and term it’s pretty hard for the Oilers to pretend that Petry wasn’t doing the heavy lifting.
Jeff Petry just finished a sweetheart contract for the Oilers that saw him only making 1.75M per season. Even at the time of signing it was an incredible deal and remained that way for its duration. Petry played 21:35 minutes per game last season which ultimately was 2nd behind Schultz. As he was the team’s best all-around defender he was forced to take on the bulk of the specifically defensive work. He was gifted almost no PP time and played over 3 minutes a night on the Penalty kill in addition to his 5v5 play.
Eakins gave him no easy zone starts as he had the least Offensive Zone Starts of any regular defender (26.2%) and only Oscar Klefbom was doled out a lower overall percentage. On top of that, he faced by far the most difficult competition of all the defensemen with his most common opponents being the likes of Perry and Getzlaf. Despite brutal zone starts and crushing opposition he still managed a positive relative Corsi% of +3.7%. That meaning he was that much higher than the average player on the Oilers. Many outsiders were happy to correct the Oilers or their rights holders all season long when they asserted the idea that Schultz was their top blueliner or played on their top pairing, as Petry was that guy.
As for his offense, it isn’t enough. He cant produce like you want a top pairing guy to produce, but that’s because deep down we all know he SHOULDN’T be a top pairing guy. There’s no way Jeff Petry should be an NHL club’s best overall Defender but, in the case of the Oilers, he is. His 80GP, 7-10-17 ranks him 100th in NHL scoring by defensemen and surrounds him with names like Bartkowski, Gunnarsson, and Hejda. As bad as that is, there is some reasonable hope that given easier competition or zone starts he can add more, but as the Oilers are constructed today it’s unlikely that will happen.
So now the question is how much is all of that worth? What should you pay the Defenseman who leads your PK, who faces the toughest competition, and who gets fed the toughest starts? What does it cost you to sign the player who lead your team in hits and blocked shots and drove possession more than all of your other regulars? What does it cost? Because you aren’t going to get Jeff Petry to sign for that 1.75M again. That’s a pipe dream. He could stand to probably double that salary and get to the 3.5M range no problem, if I’m guessing. That would put him in the Hejda or Gunnarsson range and neither of those players can boast about being AT LEAST one of the top Defenders on their club.
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