The Penguins missed Jeff Petry, to say the least.
It was back on Dec. 10 that Petry suffered a pretty rough-looking wrist injury late in a game against the Sabres at PPG Paint Arena. Petry surprised everyone in the locker room that night by seemingly being fine, declaring his wrist "all right." The next morning it was clear that Petry's wrist was worse off than he initially thought and would have to miss some time.
Petry made his return to the Penguins' lineup on Friday night in the Penguins' 4-1 win over the Senators, taking his place on the Penguins' top defense pairing with Marcus Pettersson and on the top power play unit.
"I felt pretty good," Petry said of his return. "The legs were there, they got a little heavy at the end. But it was nice to get back into game action."
It didn't take very long for Petry to remind everyone what was missed during his absence.
With both Petry and Kris Letang sidelined due to injury, something that the Penguins were missing as of late was a defenseman who is especially adept at getting shots through to the net on the power play. Ty Smith sure got better at that as his time in the lineup went on, but he definitely wasn't at the level of Petry or Letang. That led to less movement, less rebound opportunities for the rest of the skaters on that unit.
The result wasn't great. When both Petry and Letang were out of the lineup after Dec. 28 until Friday, the Penguins' power play was among the worst in the league with an 11.6% success rate, scoring on just five of 43 opportunities in that span.
The Penguins got their first power play opportunity on Friday midway through the first period. Brock McGinn laid a totally clean -- but very heavy -- hit on Senators defenseman Eric Brannstrom, and defenseman Travis Hamonic immediately stepped in to make McGinn answer for the hit by dropping the gloves. Hamonic got hit with the extra minor penalty for instigating, putting the Penguins on the man advantage.
Less than a minute into the power play, Petry took a shot from the point that was deflected by Jake Guentzel on the way in and stopped by Senators goaltender Cam Talbot. Rickard Rakell picked up the rebound and put it in:
"When we're moving it around and they're kind of spread out and that lane is there, (Guentzel) is a guy that goes there," Petry said of that play. "I saw him there alone and I know he's got a good stick there, getting a tip on that and then (Rakell) picked up the rebound. I'm just trying to put it there to reward those guys for being there."
Mike Sullivan said that he thought Petry was "really good" on the power play in this game.
"Just making good decisions on the blue line, he gets a breakaway on one of the breakouts that they ran," Sullivan said. "He put pucks at the net when he had opportunities and he had lanes. That's how they ended up scoring. He did a real good job. I thought he made great decisions on the power play tonight."
That's just what Petry does in that role. Of the four defensemen who have regularly quarterbacked a power play for the Penguins this season (Petry, Letang, Smith and P.O Joseph), Petry has the second-best rate per 60 minutes of shot attempts (20.42), unblocked shot attempts (11.78), scoring chances (7.85), and shots on goal (10.21), ranking just behind Joseph in every category. Petry has the best shooting percentage of any of the Penguins' defensemen on the power play at 15.38%, and that's paid off to the tune of two power play goals of his own in 29 games.
"He's just got a really good shot," Guentzel told of what Petry adds to the power play. "He's really smart and makes a lot of plays up there. He's kind of similar in a sense to Tanger. They're righties, they've both got good shots and they use them."
Guentzel wasn't the only one to compare Petry to Letang on Friday night -- Sullivan drew his own comparisons for other reasons. Letang is no stranger to logging high amounts of ice time in a game. Petry led the Penguins with 25:25 tonight -- not quite as high as Letang's been known to do, and not even a season-high for Petry himself. This was the sixth-most Petry has played in a game this season, with his current season-high being 27 even. But for a guy who has missed the last month-plus, it's a pretty impressive night.
"He's a terrific athlete, first and foremost," Sullivan said. "He can just play a lot of minutes. He can log a lot of minutes. He recovers. He's a lot like Tanger in that regard. Those two guys can just eat minutes when they're on our bench. They're such terrific athletes. They're so physically fit. He played 25 minutes tonight in all situations."
In addition to his 2:17 on the power play, Petry played 2:10 on the penalty-kill too, holding the Senators off the board on their three power play opportunities. The Senators were held to just four unblocked shot attempts in the 2:10 that Petry was on the ice shorthanded. Two of Petry's team-high six hits in this game came on the penalty-kill.
At five-on-five, the Penguins had the best ratio of shot attempts for vs. against (61.11%), unblocked shot attempts for vs. against (56.67%), and shots on goal for vs. against (60%) when the Petry-Pettersson pairing was on the ice compared to any other defense pairing.
The Penguins were missing all three of their regular right-handed defensemen before this game, with Letang and Jan Rutta also working through injuries still. Getting any one of them back into the lineup would have been a boost. But with what Petry brings to the power play, penalty-kill, and five-on-five, and in terms of his workload capabilities and physicality, he's perhaps the defenseman who had the capability to provide the biggest boost in his return. The results showed that tonight.
His teammates know that, and they're happy to have him back.
"He helps our team," Tristan Jarry said. "You see the things he does well all game."
