Edmonton Oilers re-sign Jeff Petry

The Edmonton Oilers announced per their website that the team has re-signed defenseman Jeff Petry to a one-year deal that will make him an unrestricted free agent next summer.

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Elliotte Friedman writes that Petry will make a hair less than $3.1 million in the 2014-15 season before he becomes a free agent, barring a further extension from the Oilers.

It’s a move that’s been quickly panned as one intended to just keep Petry in town long enough for the Oilers to move him by the trade deadline next season. The team made bigger commitments in term and money to Nikita Nikitin, Mark Fayne, and Keith Aulie while they’re also keeping an eye on the pipeline, where sit prospects Darnell Nurse, Martin Marincin, and to a lesser extent Oscar Klefbom. Petry could simply be the odd man out and the Oilers are hoping to exact a price for his departure before he can simply leave next July.

The flip side to this scenario, of course, is that GM Craig MacTavish might actually like Petry quite a bit, and wants to instill further competition in the system not only for Petry’s benefit, but for that of everyone else on the blue line. Depth is never a bad thing and MacTavish was candid and outspoken at the onset of the NHL offseason about how he wanted more defensemen on the roster. Now he has what he wanted. Would it really make sense for him to give that up less than a year after meeting his stated goal? We’ll find out at some point in the next season.

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