Deadline Addition Jeff Petry Has Paid Big Playoff Dividends for the Canadiens

There are many reasons why the Montreal Canadiens are one of just six teams still alive in the 2015 Stanley Cup Playoffs. Goaltender Carey Price, of course, belongs near the top of the list, as do star defenceman P.K. Subban and leading goal scorer Max Pacioretty. Many other members of the team’s long-term core have performed extremely well.

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General manager Marc Bergevin saw the potential of that core, and he made smart, low-cost moves at the trade deadline to bolster it. The most significant of those moves was the acquisition of defenceman Jeff Petry from the Edmonton Oilers at the low price of a second-round pick and a conditional fifth-rounder.

Petry has delivered on that purchase price. Consider, for example, how CTV Montreal’s Brian Wilde assessed the defenceman’s play on Saturday in the Habs' Game 5 win:

"

Apart from one late blunder trying to clear the zone, Jeff Petry was—and is—outstanding. Petry is a number 2 D. He will command free agent money like a 2 D in a thin year. Only one GM can give him eight years. Now I am not saying for sure to make that offer but it is sure something to think about seriously because Petry is bloody fantastic. His vision. His patience. His shot. His smarts. His read of the play. I could go on... but I have [a] lot of other guys to mention.

"

Perhaps the best way to illustrate his accomplishments in the postseason is to compare him to Montreal’s other six defencemen:

Player	Avg. TOI	QualComp	ZoneStarts	Fenwick%	Goals +/-
P.K. Subban	26.9	17.9	50.8%	54.7%	+7/-8
Andrei Markov	24.2	17.8	50.3%	55.4%	+6/-8
Jeff Petry	22.4	17.7	37.6%	56.6%	+3/-1
Alexei Emelin	21.5	17.8	38.6%	51.7%	+6/-3
Tom Gilbert	19.8	17.3	57.3%	52.0%	+10/-6
Nathan Beaulieu	12.8	17.3	64.3%	46.8%	+1/-0
Greg Pateryn	11.0	16.6	68.1%	58.6%	+5/-3

By looking at the average time on ice statistic, Petry obviously has the coach’s trust. He’s logging heavy minutes and contributing at even strength, while shorthanded and on the power play. The other numbers show that the trust is well earned.

The next two items on the chart are contextual statistics.

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The first is War-on-Ice.com’s quality of competition metric, which measures a player’s opponents based on how much time on ice they get. Petry’s opponents average 17.7 minutes per game, which is quite high and only a hair below the opposition faced by Montreal’s top pairing.

There’s a clear gap between the top four defencemen on the team—who seem to be used interchangeably against worthy adversaries—and the rest of the defence, which has been pretty carefully sheltered.

The next figure, zone starts, shows us what percentage of non-neutral zone shifts start in the offensive and defensive zones. A high number indicates lots of time on the offensive end of the rink, while a low number indicates a defensive specialist.

Petry’s been handed the toughest assignments in that regard, starting nearly two shifts in his own end of the rink for every one at the offensive end. It goes without saying that this sort of assignment gives the opposition lots of time to hammer shots and goals on the Montreal net.

That’s what makes the next numbers, which show on-ice results, so interesting.

Fenwick percentage measures the scoring chances a team compiles compared to the opponents while a certain player is on the ice. A 50 percent number shows that a player’s team manages as many goals, shots and missed shots as the opposition when said player is on the ice, and the higher the number, the better a team has performed.

With Petry out there, Montreal has performed very well indeed, hammering the opposition on the shot clock despite the fact that Petry typically plays a lot in his own end of the rink and against good players.

It’s also interesting to note that in a lot of tough minutes, Montreal’s opponents have only scored a single goal when Petry was out on the ice. Only Nathan Beaulieu, who has played all of four games in the playoffs, can claim to have allowed fewer goals while playing.

Fenwick percentages and goal results obviously measure more than just one player, but they tell us that Petry has been part of a very effective five-man unit when he’s out on the ice.

It’s telling that Petry’s regular partner, Alexei Emelin, has been far less successful, despite spending a lot of time on the same five-man unit as Petry. It’s also telling that Petry’s on-ice numbers were routinely better than those of his teammates over several years in Edmonton, despite the fact that he also played tough minutes on a ramshackle Oilers blue line.

But these numbers, while capturing some of what makes Petry special, are dispassionate. They are even a little boring in how they translate live action into black-and-white statistics. They capture results but don’t illustrate Petry's intelligence in reading plays, or how his speed suits him to a transition game. They don't display his underrated skill game with the puck or his physical game on defence.

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ESPN's Pierre LeBrun writes that Montreal head coach Michel Therrien sees all those things in Petry's game. 

"In the case of Petry, he’s playing the best hockey of his career. It’s as simple as that," said Therrien. "He’s really solid defensively, skates well, distributes the puck well, he’s able to jump up in the playoff (sic) offensively."

One example of Petry's emergence is his offensive game. The numbers above showcase Petry as primarily a conservative defenceman, and that is his chief virtue. But Jack Han of Eyes on the Prize does a good job of explaining how Petry’s subtle offensive game has been crucial to Montreal’s power play:

"

Speaking of Petry, he has been a great addition to Montreal's first powerplay unit alongside Subban. For the first time, it gives the Habs a versatile, right-handed defenseman to play the all-important concierge role on the 1-3-1. ...

Petry is called upon to hold the fort defensively, and to distribute the puck—to Subban at the left point for the one-timer or to a forward at the right sideboards.

If he does his job right, he shouldn't be shooting the puck all that much. Most likely, he'll be getting second assists, or no credit at all on the scoreboard.

That's why I call him the concierge. It's an important, if somewhat thankless job.

"

Petry’s performance in Montreal has done a lot to improve his profile in this summer’s unrestricted free-agent market, but right now, that’s not important, as Petry himself noted to LeBrun.

"[M]y focus is on hockey; it’s the big time of the year. I don’t want anything from the outside coming," Petry said. "We’ll just play out the year and see what happens."

After a grim start to the second round which saw the Canadiens fall to Tampa Bay in the series' first three games, the team is once again playing well. Montreal has pushed back with two consecutive victories, reducing the gap between the Lightning and the Habs to a single game and once again giving the playoff's last surviving Canadian team a legitimate shot of advancing to the Eastern Conference Final.

If the Habs are to complete the comeback, they’ll need Petry to continue to do what he’s done so well already: Provide calm, competent play in heavy and difficult assignments. So far, he’s been up to the challenge.

Statistics courtesy of NHL.com, Hockey-Reference.com and War-on-Ice.com unless otherwise noted.

Jonathan Willis covers the NHL for Bleacher Report. Follow him on Twitter for more of his work.