The Oilers have kicked off Trade Deadline Day by trading their 27 year old Right Handed Defenseman (and the best defender on their team) for Montreal's 2nd and a 5th.
MacTavish failed to acquire a live body in return for Jeff Petry. The 5th Round pick will change depending on the playoff success of the Canadiens to become as high as a 3rd Round pick.
It is difficult to defend the trade given the low success rate of 2nd round picks and the fact that the team is unquestionably better with Jeff Petry than without him, but the Oilers failed to create a relationship with this player that could lead to his next contract and they were forced to move him.
The Oilers were unable to assess the player appropriately last year, believing that they had better players on the blueline. They settled for a contract that would lead to impending Free Agency and didn't speak particularly highly of Petry. Perhaps the most damaging thing they've done was making him a healthy scratch in order to play Hunt and Nurse against the Kings in October. It is believed that move hurt the relationship between the player and the Oilers greatly. In January Petry wasn't made a priority to re-sign and I think that killed whatever shred of hope there was left.
Now MacT, who clearly didn't have Petry in the plans for some time, only managed to get a pedestrian pick even though he had a significant amount of time to broker a deal for this player. This is not a good deal.
The Oilers are yet again playing the role of development system for the league. They spent almost a decade turning Petry into the player he his now, just 300 NHL games into his career. Now they've given him to a contending club for next to nothing. Wash, rinse, repeat. We've seen this too many times except in the past it was (at least) because the Oilers couldn't afford to pay those players. Now it's just because they didn't want to pay the player.
I cannot begins to describe my disappointment with this deal and the return that MacT got for this player. For now all I have to say is good luck Jeff Petry and the Montreal Canadiens.
Edmonton Oilers Blogger • 
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