Jeff Petry traded from Oilers to Canadiens for picks

The Edmonton Oilers are giving Jeff Petry a chance to compete in his first Stanley Cup playoffs.

The NHL club on Monday traded the pending unrestricted free-agent defenceman to Montreal for a 2015 second-round draft pick and a conditional fifth-rounder (previously acquired from Colorado) in this June’s draft.

Montreal sits atop the Eastern Conference with a 41-16-5 record.

Petry, 27, had four goals and 15 points in 59 games this season for the Oilers, who sit last in the West with an 18-34-10 mark.

The native of Ann Arbor, Mich. had four points in his final seven games with Edmonton while also recording 103 shots, 101 hits and averaging 20 minutes 57 seconds of ice time per game.

Drafted by Edmonton in the second round in 2006, Petry has 17 goals and 74 points in 295 NHL regular-season games. He is considered a strong skater with the ability to make a crisp first pass out of the defensive zone.

Petry’s arrival will allow Canadiens all-star defenceman P.K. Subban to trim his minutes, which had soared of late with injuries to the team’s defence corps. In his last 10 games, Subban exceeded 30 minutes four times and surpassed 26 minutes on four occasions.

The six-foot-three, 198-pound Petry has a salary cap hit of $3 million this season, so he'll cost Montreal about $750,000 for the final 20 games of the season.

Petry and the Oilers reportedly couldn't come to an agreement on a new contract earlier in the season.

Mitchell going home

The Canadiens acquired Montreal native Torrey Mitchell from Buffalo before Monday's trade deadline for forward prospect Jack Nevins and a seventh-round draft pick in 2016.

The 30-year-old Mitchell scored six goals and 13 points in 51 games for the Sabres this season. Three of the centre's six goals came in the past two games.

Buffalo acquired Mitchell from Minnesota at last year's deadline, sending forwards Matt Moulson and Cody McCormick to the Wild for second-round draft picks in 2014 and 2016.

Nevins is a gritty 21-year-old forward from Stittsville, Ont. Montreal signed the undrafted left-winger on Dec. 4, 2013.

In 32 games this season with the Hamilton Bulldogs of the American Hockey League, Nevins had no points, minus-8 rating and 88 penalty minutes.

Habs add centre depth

Montreal also acquired depth centre Brian Flynn, 26, from the Buffalo Sabres for a 2016 fifth-round draft pick.

In his second full NHL season, the undrafted Flynn had five goals, 17 points and a minus-3 rating in 54 games for Buffalo.

He is a right-hand shot and will likely see action on the third or fourth line.

"I'm really excited for this opportunity that I have; to go to the team that's first place in the East," Flynn told the Sabres' website. "Always, when you have a chance to win, I'll take the opportunity.

"I obviously don't expect to go there and play the 20 minutes a night that I've been playing here. They've got a really deep lineup, a lot of good forwards, a lot of guys who can score. If I play more of a defensive role or kill some penalties and things like that, whatever I can do to help the team win, that's what I'm going to do."

The Sabres signed Flynn as a free agent in 2012 after he completed his university career at Maine.