Petry sought to make the most of injury-shortened 2024-25 campaign

DETROIT -- Jeff Petry pushed to return to game action following an abdominal injury that he sustained on Jan. 3 before he and the Detroit Red Wings medical staff determined that undergoing surgery, which sidelined the 37-year-old defenseman until late March of the 2024-25 season, was his best recovery path forward.

“Obviously, nobody wants to get hurt,” Petry said during his end-of-season media session on April 19. “Then you get hurt with a new [coaching] staff coming in and implementing everything, so you try to stay up to speed with system changes and video, watching games and going into review sessions after that. Just trying to be involved while not being able to be on the ice.”

Petry was limited to 44 games in his second campaign with Detroit, recording eight points (one goal, seven assists). The Ann Arbor, Mich., native still enjoyed some notable individual NHL milestones despite missing significant time, including playing his 950th career game on Nov. 16 and 100th with his hometown Original Six club on Dec. 7.

“It was a tough second half of the year for me,” Petry said. “I think we responded well to the coaching change. Changing systems on the fly, I think it helped improve our game. Everybody did a good job learning on the fly and changing their games to better the team. I think we did a good job with that, but it’s obviously disappointing to be sitting here and not where we all wanted to be. But I think there was growth this year.”

An area of growth Petry elaborated on was Detroit’s “defensive play as a group of six” under head coach Todd McLellan and assistant coach Trent Yawney, both of whom were named to their respective roles on Dec. 26.

“I think Todd really hammered the fact that, especially down the stretch and when you do get into playoff position, you’re going to have to win games 2-1, 3-2,” Petry said. “You can’t open things up to try to score while giving up things defensively. He really hammered that. If you watch the games, the work that the forwards did coming back out of the offensive zone, I think that helped break up a lot of plays before they got into our end. It gives us the confidence to play the rush tighter, knowing that you have guys backchecking and pressuring that puck.”

An unrestricted free agent this summer, Petry is confident he has more hockey left in him.

“It’s definitely my goal to play next year,” Petry said. “I was really pushing to come back from the injury to prove to everyone and myself that I could still play.”