Oilers trade tree: Salvaging the awful Jeff Petry trade

As Jeff Petry’s career winds down, it’s getting harder and harder to remember him in the orange and blue.

Sure, there are more forgettable Edmonton Oilers in the Decade of Darkness, but the lone Petry game that I personally remember is when he scored a goal in a game against the Detroit Red Wings. Unfortunately, it was an own-goal in 2012-13, one of just two seasons where it looked like the Oilers had a legitimate chance of making the playoffs from 2007-08 until 2015-16.

Drafted 45th overall in the 2006 draft, the right-shot defenceman spent three seasons at Michigan State before finally signing his entry-level contract with the Oilers. He split his first full professional season between the American Hockey League and National Hockey League, scoring a goal and five points in 35 games during the 2010-11 season.

Petry became a regular in 2011-12, scoring twice with 23 assists in 73 games. In the lockout-shortened 2012-13 season, Petry scored three goals and 12 points in 48 games, followed by a career-high seven goals in 80 games during the 2013-14 season.

But Petry entered the 2014-15 season as a pending unrestricted free agent. With the Oilers out of contention and failing to agree to a long-term deal, they shipped him to the Montréal Canadiens for a 2015 second and a 2015 fourth rounder.

Petry was their best defenceman at the time of the trade, and this was an undeniably bad return for him. The Michigan product eventually blossomed with the Canadiens, scoring double-digit goals and 40 or more points in four seasons spanning from 2017-18 until 2020-21.

However, it’s what the Oilers did with those picks that not only makes this trade tree interesting, but also salvages it.

The fallout from the Petry trade

The 2015 draft was a weird one for the Oilers. As you know, the Oilers drafted Connor McDavid first overall, and they even did well in the latter rounds, so there were positives from it. That said it was overshadowed by the Griffin Reinhart trade.

At the time, it was regarded as a terrible trade and, unsurprisingly, it didn’t age well. Not only did Reinhart not pan out, but the Oilers missed out on a golden opportunity to draft a handful of future top-six players, as they traded the 16th and 33rd overall picks

If you’re wondering, the 16th overall pick was used to select Mathew Barzal, and just two picks after when the Oilers would have picked, the Carolina Hurricanes selected Sebastian Aho. It was one of many bungles made by the Oilers’ management in the Connor McDavid/Leon Draisaitl era.

Anyway, a day later, the Oilers packaged the second acquired in the Petry deal with a 2015 third and 2015 seventh for Cam Talbot and a 2017 seventh. Of the six players the Oilers drafted in 2015, Ziyat Paigin, the seventh-rounder, was just one of two that failed to reach the NHL.

The picks traded for Talbot were used to select Jonas Siegenthaler, Sergei Zborovskiy, and Adam Húska. Siegenthaler is the only who reached the NHL, aside from Húska’s one game.

Cam Talbot’s branch of the tree

This trade turned out great for the Oilers, at least to start. In his first season in Edmonton, Talbot posted a .917 save percentage and 2.55 goals against average in 56 games, not too bad for a team that finished in the bottom three. But his 2016-17 season remains as his best to this day.

Talbot played a whopping 73 games for the Oilers, finishing the year with a 42-22-8 record, a .919 save percentage, and a 2.39 goals against average. McDavid won the Hart Trophy this season, but Talbot was the team’s MVP.

He regressed a bit in 2017-18, posting a .908 save percentage and 3.02 goals against average in 67 games. But by the 2018-19 season, the games caught up the netminder, finishing his Oilers tenure with an .893 save percentage and 3.36 goals against average in 31 games.

On Feb 16, 2019, the Oilers sent Talbot to the Philadelphia Flyers for Anthony Stolarz. Unfortunately, this was pre-breakout Stolarz, as he played just six games for the Oilers before signing with the Ducks for the 2019-20 season. 

This ended the branch of the trade tree, but Talbot has gone on to be a successful journeyman 1B backup netminder. He also happened to be the best goalie of the McDavid/Draisaitl era, so for that alone, the Oilers salvaged the Petry trade with the follow-up move.

The Seth Jones branch

Moving back to the 2015 draft, the fourth-rounder acquired in the Petry trade was used to select Caleb Jones, only their second selection of the draft. The Oilers then went on to draft Ethan Bear with their fifth, and John Marino with their sixth. All three defencemen have played 250 or more games.

The younger brother of then-Chicago Blackhawks defenceman Seth Jones, Caleb Jones, played three seasons with the Oilers, scoring five goals and 19 points in 93 games. Following the 2021 season, the Oilers sent a 2022 third and the left-shot defenceman to the Blackhawks for Duncan Keith (and Tim Söderlund).

Jones’ best days were with the Blackhawks, playing 124 games with nine goals and 31 points. Since then, he’s served as a depth defenceman for the Colorado Avalanche, Los Angeles Kings, and Pittsburgh Penguins.

As for the third the Oilers gave up in the trade, it was flipped to the Arizona Coyotes, who used it to select Jérémy Langlois, who played 30 games for the University of Maine in 2025-26.

Keith was in the tail end of his soon-to-be Hall of Fame career, scoring just one goals and 21 points in 64 games. However, he helped the Oilers reach the Conference Finals for the first time since 2006, scoring a goal and five points in 16 games. This was all while providing valuable leadership to the defence corps. Keith in the 2022 off-season, having won three Stanley Cups with the Blackhawks.

In the end

The initial trade that kick-started this tree was bad, there’s no denying that. Not only did the Oilers sell low on Petry, but it forced them to move Taylor Hall for Adam Larsson. They salvaged this trade thanks to two solid moves, acquiring the best Oilers’ netminder of the last decade, as well as a veteran defenceman who was a part of the team that finally made the conference finals.