Lost in the Shuffle

This will be a common themed post for me moving forward this season. I’ll take a look at someone who stood out in a good way or who played an effective but quiet game and aren’t being talked about. My first look will be at Jeff Petry.

Petry seems to be taking over the mantle as one of the most polarizing players for the Oilers. That is why he has been chosen as my first LITS candidate. The numbers…

So there you have it. He played the most even strength minutes (by over 3 minutes I might add), didn’t spend any time on the PP, finished the night +1 and helped contribute to even strength shot attempts while on the ice at an almost 2:1 clip. A great night by any metric.

What I like about Petry is that he plays a sound all around game. He doesn’t blast any opposing players into the first row of seats. He doesn’t dictate offense like J. Shultz does. What he does is play a sound positional game bordered by good descisions and only gets noticed when he makes a mistake of which, on this night, there were not many. If he plays like that all season, he will have contributed to the Oilers making the playoffs.

Moral of the post? Don’t listen to the chatter that he is soft and useless. He’s a player.

Edit: Corsi#s taken from Boys on the Bus, Game stats taken from NHL.com