Florida Panthers defenseman Jeff Petry was one of the players named on The Athletic’s ($) The NHL’s top under-the-radar moves of the 2025 offseason. Here’s what Herman Dayal had to say about Florida signing the unrestricted free agent on July 1.
The move: $775,000 x one year (plus performance bonuses) free-agent signing.
Jeff Petry is 37 and needs to be insulated, but there are reasons to believe he could have a renaissance year and significantly outperform his league-minimum base salary.
First, there is the expected change in workload. Petry averaged nearly 19 minutes per game (fourth among Red Wings defensemen) and was saddled with a subpar partner in Ben Chiarot. In other words, he was thrust into a challenging role that he was no longer equipped to handle. Going to Florida, he’ll be able to comfortably slot in as a No. 6 defenseman, where he’ll handle fewer minutes and far easier defensive matchups. He will likely play alongside Dmitry Kulikov, who would be a rock-solid partner.
Second, the Panthers’ track record of rehabilitating out-of-favor defensemen is outstanding. They don’t hit on every cheap back-end signing (Adam Boqvist and Mike Reilly are two examples), but Oliver Ekman-Larsson, Niko Mikkola and Nate Schmidt stand out as depth acquisitions on the blue line who were far better on the Panthers than they were on their previous team.
The on-ice environment and a player’s fit play an underrated role in determining whether a defenseman will succeed on a given team. Cam Fowler, for example, had some of the worst underlying metrics of all NHL defensemen over the last couple of years with the Ducks and looked washed. He had an immediate, dramatic glow-up and returned to thriving in a top-four role as soon as he left Anaheim’s miserable on-ice environment. Petry is older and worse than Fowler was when he got traded, but the former’s role and expected workload in Florida will also be dramatically easier.
Petry’s pedigree and ability are still high enough to think he should provide solid value on the Panthers’ third pair, with virtually no risk incurred because his cap hit is so low.
Panthers prospect defenseman Matvei Shuravin scored the game-opening goal, his first marker of the season, in Krasnaya Armiya’s 3-1 victory over SKA-1946 in action from Russia’s MHL.
Denis Gabdrakhmanov, a seventh-rounder in 2024, posted his first shutout of the season in Rubin Tyumen’s 4-0 win over Bars in MHL action.