Stu Cowan: Habs are home for blue-line anchor Jeff Petry and his family
Scored two goals in victory over Carolina Hurricanes Thursday night after getting cheered on by his 19-month-old son during pregame warmup.
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The best photo taken at the Bell Centre Thursday night was shot before the puck even dropped for a game between the Canadiens and Carolina Hurricanes.
During the pre-game warm-up, a photo was taken of Barrett Petry — who is 19 months old — wearing a bleu-blanc-rouge tuque with a precious smile on his face while banging on the glass after seeing his father, Jeff, skate by on the ice. Petry’s wife, Julie, posted the photo on Twitter Friday morning.
“She showed me the picture last night,” Petry said after the Canadiens practised Friday in Brossard in preparation for Saturday’s game against the Ottawa Senators at the Bell Centre (7 p.m., SN, TVA Sports, TSN 690 Radio).
“I do see him when I go out for warmups,” Petry added. “It’s always fun. When I skate by them and they see me, they always get excited.”
Barrett’s brother Boyd, who is 3, was also at the game Thursday night, which the Canadiens won 6-4, but the two boys probably didn’t see their father score his two goals, including one into the empty net, or be named the game’s first star.
“They stay the whole game,” Petry said. “But Barrett usually goes and sleeps in the (family) lounge. Boyd, depending on the day, last night he made it through two periods and then he went down to the play room and played around.”
Montreal has become home for the Petrys, who have settled in on the South Shore near the team’s practice facility. Petry came to Montreal after Canadiens general manager Marc Bergevin acquired him from the Edmonton Oilers at the NHL trade deadline on March 2, 2015, in exchange for a second-round pick (defenceman Jonas Siegenthaler) and a fourth-round pick (defenceman Caleb Jones) at the 2015 NHL Draft. Petry could have become an unrestricted free agent on July 1 that year, but instead decided to sign a six-year, US$33-million contract to stay in Montreal without ever testing the free-agent market.
“Just my experience in that short time,” Petry said when asked what made him decide to stay in Montreal after getting his first taste of NHL playoff action his first season here. “Coming in here, good group of guys. I got my first chance in the playoffs. I thought there was a good group and just the atmosphere during that time, I don’t think there’s a better place to win. So that had a lot to do with it.”
The Canadiens are winning again this season, holding the second wild-card playoff spot in the Eastern Conference with a 16-11-5 record after Thursday night’s victory. Petry is a big reason for that.
For the first 24 games, Petry admirably filled Shea Weber’s huge skates as the Canadiens’ No. 1 defenceman while the captain recovered from off-season knee surgery. Since Weber’s return eight games ago, Petry has settled nicely into the No. 3 spot on the blue line, posting 5-2-7 totals and a plus-3 rating. For the season, Petry has 7-17-24 totals and is minus-3 while averaging 23:57 of ice time. After Thursday’s game, Petry ranked eighth among NHL defencemen in scoring.
“I’m shooting the puck,” Petry said when asked about his offence. “But the main focus is just making a good first pass. And I think what’s led to a lot of those points is making a good breakout pass and the guy carrying it in or making another play.”
Petry’s father, Dan, was a major-league pitcher for 13 seasons and helped the Detroit Tigers win the 1984 World Series. But Petry was only 3 when his father retired from baseball, so he has no real memories of watching him pitch.
“I do remember being on the field (at Tiger Stadium) a little bit, but I don’t have any memories of him pitching,” Petry said.
Thanks to today’s social media, Barrett will be able to look back years from now at the photo of himself from Thursday’s pre-game warmup, along with an adorable video Julie also posted on Twitter of her two sons getting very excited when they saw their dad on TV during the national anthems before last Sunday’s game in Chicago.
The Petrys had no children when they first arrived in Montreal. Julie gave birth to Boyd a month after Jeff signed his new contract with the Canadiens. The couple met when they were attending Michigan State University, where Jeff played hockey for the Spartans and Julie was on the field-hockey team.
“It’s good,” Petry said about his family’s life on Montreal’s South Shore. “It’s quiet and there’s a lot of guys (on the team) in the area. It’s a little different now with kids. You don’t get downtown to the restaurants too often. It’s quiet. The kids are in daycare and everything, so it’s a good situation for us.”
When asked if he had any special plans after Friday’s practice, Petry smiled and said: “Have lunch and then I have to go get my winter tires put on. Today’s the deadline day.”
A simple day most fathers with a young family can relate to.
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