{"id":130123,"date":"2022-07-13T14:45:59","date_gmt":"2022-07-13T18:45:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/?p=130123"},"modified":"2022-07-13T14:45:59","modified_gmt":"2022-07-13T18:45:59","slug":"jan-rutta-signs-new-contract","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/2022\/07\/13\/jan-rutta-signs-new-contract\/","title":{"rendered":"Jan Rutta Signs New Contract"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The Pittsburgh Penguins have announced that they&#8217;ve signed <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hockey-reference.com\/players\/r\/ruttaja02.html?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Jan Rutta<\/a> to a contract. This deal is for $8.25 million and carries through the 2024-25 season. The average cap hit is $2.75 million per season.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">The Penguins have signed defenseman Jan Rutta to a three-year contract worth $8.25 million.<\/p>\n<p>The contract will begin in the 2022.23 season and runs through the 2024.25 season, and carries an average annual value of $2.75 million. <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/l1ZrMrN9NK\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">https:\/\/t.co\/l1ZrMrN9NK<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Pittsburgh Penguins (@penguins) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/penguins\/status\/1547288767647694848?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">July 13, 2022<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<h2>Jan Rutta Gets Another Contract<\/h2>\n<p>Rutta scored three goals and handed out 15 assists for 18 points <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/2021\/03\/31\/jan-rutta-injury-adds-to-tampa-bay-lightning-defensive-casualties\/\" target=\"_self\">in 76 games this season<\/a>. The Pisek, Czechoslovakia native had a 49.6 Corsi for and a -2.3 relative Corsi. He has 12 goals and 49 assists for 61 points in 238 career games. Rutta was a standout in the Czech Extraliga and was one the best shutdown blueliners in the league.<\/p>\n<p>The veteran defenceman has played with the Chicago Blackhawks and Tampa Bay Lightning over his six-year NHL career. Rutta signed with the Blackhawks an undrafted free agent in the 2017-18 season. He was traded to the Lightning in Jan. 2019 after struggling in the AHL with Rockford.<\/p>\n<p>Rutta eventually found his place in the NHL after a short time with Tampa&#8217;s AHL affiliate in Syracuse. The Czech defender found a great defensive partner in Norris Trophy-winner <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hockey-reference.com\/players\/h\/hedmavi01.html?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Victor Hedman<\/a>. The soon-to-be 32-year-old played in hand in the Lightning&#8217;s Stanley Cup winners.<\/p>\n<p>He&#8217;s also represented his native Czechia on the international level in juniors and was part of the 2017 squad at the IIHF World Championships.<\/p>\n<h3>What it Means<\/h3>\n<p>Rutta may be in his 30s and slowing down a bit, but he&#8217;s <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/2019\/01\/12\/tampa-bay-trade-koekkoek-to-chicago-for-rutta\/\" target=\"_self\">still a valuable defenceman<\/a>. He won&#8217;t get a lot of points, but he can still be a good shutdown defender on the second pairing.<\/p>\n<p>He&#8217;s worked his way from being stuck in the AHL to being a key cog with a multiple-time Stanley Cup champion. Rutta will be an important defender no matter what team he goes to. Veteran defenders like him are hard to come by and he doesn&#8217;t mind throwing the body or getting his hands dirty.<\/p>\n<p>His best offensive season in the league was this season with his three goals.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">Jan Rutta puts the Lightning up 1-0 late in the 1st.<\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s just his 3rd career playoff goal in 48 career games.<\/p>\n<p>Rutta&#8217;s last goal was in Game 3 of the 2021 Stanley Cup Final. <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/cjJMXdRIUC\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">pic.twitter.com\/cjJMXdRIUC<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 ESPN Stats &amp; Info (@ESPNStatsInfo) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/ESPNStatsInfo\/status\/1540498747146358785?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">June 25, 2022<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Pittsburgh Penguins have announced that they&#8217;ve signed Jan Rutta to a contract. This deal is for $8.25 million and carries through the 2024-25 season. The average cap hit is $2.75 million per season. The Penguins have signed defenseman Jan Rutta to a three-year contract worth $8.25 million. The contract will begin in the 2022.23 [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2352,"featured_media":130124,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4547,34,4548,12],"tags":[1742,662,6022,6421,1124],"class_list":["post-130123","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-hockey","category-news","category-nhl","category-penguins","tag-jan-rutta","tag-nhl-free-agency","tag-pittsburgh-penguins-news","tag-tampa-bay-lightning-news","tag-victor-hedman"],"modified_by":"Dan Mount, Editor","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/130123","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2352"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=130123"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/130123\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/130124"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=130123"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=130123"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=130123"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}