Look. I already know what you're all thinking. "The funny Twitter man is spewing out nonsense." But this isn't the case.
I've made it no secret that I'm a fan of Jeff Petry. What originally started as a Twitter meme blossomed into a bit of a cult fandom within Red Wings Twitter. But I'm not here to convince you to love Petry. What I'm here to do is to make an argument on why the Red Wings should bring back the veteran defenseman.
im done hiding my truth.
— sav⁴ 🧡 (@motorcitysav) June 26, 2025
if yall dont accept me for who i am then see yourself out.
i love the petry family. so much.
whew, that felt good to get off my chest.
While it's true that Petry may not have had the best seasons with the Red Wings, He wasn't nearly as bad as many made him out to be, and his play only improved when put in the right situations with the right partner.
Petry is the perfect candidate for the Wings to bring back for cheap
After Steve Yzerman made the trade to bring Petry to the Red Wings, the feeling around the fandom seemed to be a mix of excitement, but also content, as Petry had developed a reputation as a great goal-scoring defenseman, something the Red Wings desperately needed, and in some ways, still kind of need.
To be clear, when I say that the Red Wings should bring Petry back, I'm not saying that they should bring him back in the same second pairing role that he's played for most of his time in the Winged Wheel. No, I'm saying bring him back in a 6/7th role who only comes in when an injury occurs or when another defenseman is scratched for whatever reason.
Not only did he visibly improve after Todd McLellan took over as the Red Wings' new bench boss. A good bit of that had to do with him being paired up with Simon Edvinsson, but he was also deployed far better by McLellan than he was under Derek Lalonde. He was deployed more in the Offensive zone, the place where he made his career, and spent less time in the defensive zone when it could be helped.
Not to mention, he's only 19 games away from hitting the 1,000-game mark. A milestone he would've hit during the 2024-25 season if not for an unfortunate injury soon after the turn of the year. He also has a love for the city of Detroit and the State of Michigan that rivals that of Dylan Larkin.
So I'm not saying that he should be brought back to be one of the primary figures on the blue line, all I'm saying is that he scored two goals against the Toronto Maple Leafs and nobody can convince me otherwise.
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