Jeff Petry relished the chaos, returning home after a demanding practice to three rambunctious boys with baseball gloves, Nerf guns and boundless energy.
But last winter, when he walked in the door all that waited was a sad silence.
Petry was amid a lost season with the Montreal Canadiens when the pandemic pushed his family toward a decision point. The Omicron variant was spreading fast. COVID restrictions were reinstated in the province of Quebec. Schools shuttered again, with no clear answers from authorities on when they might reopen.
As a parent, you make tough choices and hope you are doing the right thing.
Petry and his wife, Julie, felt it was in the best interest of the boys for them to move back to Michigan, where they could have in-person schooling and a semblance of normalcy. He would stay and finish the season's final four months alone.
"It was tough being away from them. You can FaceTime, but it's not the same. So that was difficult to go through," Petry said, his eyes lowering and his words trailing off. "It's not the same. It's just not the same as being there with them."
Family is one of the primary reasons Petry is now in Pittsburgh. It is why he wanted out of Montreal and back across the border. His wish was granted in July.
The Penguins, believing a bigger and meaner bunch of blue-liners can shove them back into Stanley Cup contention, swooped in to acquire him from Montreal.
After coming so close to the Cup two years ago, Petry is primed for the fight.
But underneath the reddish beard and snarling face is a proud family man who is just as thrilled to be reunited with Julie and the boys, and to be a few hours down the road from his mom and his dad, a former Major League Baseball pitcher.
The start of the year was excruciating but everything worked out in the end.
"It magnified how important our family unit is to us and just solidified to us even more how much we all love being together. As crazy and as much of a circus as we are, we love the chaos. And we love it together," Julie said. "We would never really want that to happen again. But it was part of the story, you know?"
Special connection
Jeff and Julie Petry met the first day of their freshman year at Michigan State. They were in the same anthropology class. She remembers Jeff as the "super quiet kid" in glasses who sat way in the back with a few other ice hockey players.
"Yeah, I didn't really think much of him at that moment," she said with a laugh.
Her field hockey teammates warned her the hockey guys were "bad news." But as the semester went on and Jeff was the only one attending class, she began to think he might be different. She later learned he was there just to see her.
They first became friends, often sitting together in the dining hall. Eventually, Jeff asked her out. When Julie brought her roommate to dinner, he got the hint.
Julie "saw the light" their junior year. They started hanging out more and more. By March, they were officially dating. Two weeks later, Jeff needed to talk.
He was leaving Michigan State to go play professional hockey. Tomorrow.
"When he was gone, I realized how much I missed him. I was like, 'OK, this is for real,'" Julie said. "We did long distance his whole first year [in the minors]. And then that was that. We got engaged and 10 years later here we are."
They now have four boys. Boyd, 7, is curious, a rule follower and a lot like Jeff. Barrett, 5, is amped up and obsessed with sports. Bowen, like most 3-year-olds, is a rollercoaster. Blake, the newborn, was likely their last shot at a baby girl.
Julie helps run Line Change, a clothing line designed for female hockey fans.
Jeff, 34, juggles his hockey career with being a doting dad. His Instagram page gives a glimpse into his life as a family man — birthday parties, beach trips, matching Halloween costumes, Little League and the occasional bottle of red wine.
"It amazes me how he comes to the rink with energy after chasing around his boys all day," former Canadiens teammate Joel Edmundson said. "He and Julie do a great job of managing the kids and making sure Jeff is ready to go at night."
Some NHL forwards might respectfully disagree, but Julie feels Jeff is the "nicest, sweetest, most thoughtful human," something she credits to his upbringing.
"His parents are the most humble, gracious, kindest, most welcoming people," she said. "So obviously that played a huge part in how they raised their son."
Professional lineage
After a 12-year career and a World Series win with Detroit in 1984, Dan Petry had aspirations and opportunities to be a minor league pitching coach. Instead, he stayed in Michigan to develop a couple of kids named Matt and Jeff Petry.
Jeff was 4 when his dad retired and has little recollection of his career. Dan was happy to talk about trying to strike out Cal Ripken Jr. or George Brett but was rarely the one to bring it up. Only in public was his dad's fame hammered home.
"A lot of times you can tell where the kid comes from just by meeting the parents, right? His dad is a really super nice guy, a classy individual, humble," said Claude Julien, who coached Jeff for four years in Montreal. "You can tell that Jeff has taken on that personality, following a little bit in his dad's footsteps that way."
Jeff is quick to note that his mom, Christine, deserves a big chunk of credit, too.
Naturally, the boys were pointed toward baseball. Matt, three years older, is now a championship-winning coach at their old high school in Orchard Lake, a Detroit suburb. Jeff was a first baseman who occasionally stepped on the mound.
Dan also wanted them to participate in a winter sport. They picked hockey.
With a December birthday, Jeff was typically one of the youngest on the ice as he climbed the youth hockey ladder. He got cut several times over the years but kept pushing through the disappointment, learning valuable lessons on the way.
His junior year of high school, Jeff gave up baseball. He loved hockey more and clearly had a future in that sport. Plus, part of what drew him to hockey in the first place was the chance to blaze his own path. So it was a no-brainer. With tears in his eyes he finally mustered up the courage to break the news to his dad.
"I had to tell him, 'Jeff, come on. It's all right with me,'" Dan said. "Not in the least was I upset. If he wanted to be a concert pianist, I'd have been OK with it."
That weekend, they were back on the highway to another far-flung tournament or showcase camp. All the sacrifices would soon pay off when Jeff was invited to go play for the Des Moines Buccaneers of the United States Hockey League.
From there, things took off like one of those 95-mph slap shots he could already unleash. He was suddenly a hot commodity for top NCAA teams. Michigan State landed the rangy right-shot defenseman with puck skills and preternatural poise.
"He was in some ways a modern-day defenseman who could skate, move the puck and defend with his stick and good positioning, as opposed to being overly physical or outmuscling people," MSU coach Rick Comley said. "You just knew that when he got bigger and stronger, he was definitely going to play in the NHL."
Within a matter of months, Petry had played his way onto the NHL's radar and into the second round of the NHL draft. The Oilers selected him 45th overall.
Shouldering a burden
In Petry's five years in Edmonton, the Oilers churned coaches and collected lottery balls. That didn't prevent him from developing into a top-four defenseman.
Petry took his game to another level in Montreal. He buried double-digit goals four years in a row. He earned Norris Trophy votes, most recently in 2020-21.
"Jeff is one of those guys that when he feels you have confidence in him, he'll go out there and give it his all," Julien said. "We made it clear to him that we needed him to step up and we put him in all situations — whether it was penalty kill, power play, playing against top lines. And he really thrived on that challenge."
He was one of the best Canadiens players when they shockingly popped the Penguins' playoff bubble in 2020. Petry was even better the following spring, helping Montreal make the Stanley Cup Final. Tampa Bay spoiled that Cinderella story.
"He showed the type of player he can be," said Edmundson, his defense partner in Montreal. "If you need him to score a goal or make a big play, he'll do that. If you need him to lay down and block a shot and play those hard minutes, he's willing to do that, too. That playoff run definitely opened a lot of people's eyes."
After what was the pinnacle of his pro career, with Petry averaging 24 minutes of ice time during those playoffs, last season presented unimaginable lows.
His family left for Michigan just before Christmas. He saw them only three times before the season ended, with the Canadiens surprisingly in the NHL's cellar.
Shea Weber was done, the toll of his injuries ending his career. Carey Price, one of Petry's best friends on the team, played in just five games due to his own injuries and his high-profile battle with mental health issues. The Canadiens won just eight of their first 48 games. Both their coach and general manager got fired.
In that morass, Petry's box-score numbers and advanced stats both dipped.
Petry takes losing hard, with a tendency to beat up on himself if he feels he let his teammates down dating all the way back to those long car rides with his dad.
Edmundson said his defense partner stayed positive around the sinking team and tried to put on a happy face. But he could tell Petry was silently struggling.
"He obviously missed them every day, so I can only imagine what he was going through," Edmundson said. "Plus, we were in last place and dealing with all these injuries, so there was a lot on Jeff's shoulders. He did the best he could."
'The best spot'
Montreal's season mercifully ended in late April. The family was soon reunited. It was tough on the boys and even more difficult for mom and dad. But both Jeff and Julie strongly believe they made the right decision back in December.
"It's not ideal when you have three kids at the time, and then I'm pregnant. But we had to do what was best for our family," she said. "And we made it through."
In July, five days after Blake was born, Jeff finally got the call he was hoping for.
He missed it. Fittingly, he was down in the basement with their two older boys.
Jeff was heading to the States — and to a Cup hopeful. Montreal traded Petry and forward Ryan Poehling to Pittsburgh for Mike Matheson and a draft pick.
While Petry is an older player, the Penguins believe he still has plenty of game left. He is not known as a fighter but he is plenty tough. They expect him to help shore up their net-front defense and add an element of physicality on the blue line. Plus, he is still viewed as a good skater with plus passing and puck skills.
Julien, who fondly recalls the Petry boys storming the Montreal dressing room after games, believes Petry will fit in well on Pittsburgh's defense second pair.
"They play a style that will accentuate his strengths," the coach said. "There are some great forwards to move the puck to. The forwards can also find the second wave, when the defenseman comes in on the rush. It is a great situation."
Petry agrees, pointing to the experience and hunger of the team's top players.
"And for my personal life, it has been an easy transition," the blue-liner added.
Everything lined up perfectly for the family. Blake arrived, Jeff got traded then they found a house here and closed the day before school started for the boys.
Instead of needing Julie to hold up her iPhone so Jeff could watch the boys practice from afar, they will be rink rats here at UPMC Lemieux Sports Complex.
Dan and Chris will make the short drive down for Thursday's season opener.
Penguins players and their significant others welcomed them with open arms.
"We are so happy to be here. I don't know any other way to explain it," Julie said. "We feel so settled so quickly. It just feels like we've been here for years. I think if we were going to be traded anywhere, this was the best spot to come to."
