{"id":130626,"date":"2022-07-13T13:39:29","date_gmt":"2022-07-13T17:39:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/?p=130626"},"modified":"2022-07-13T13:39:29","modified_gmt":"2022-07-13T17:39:29","slug":"olli-maatta-contract-signed-ufa-defenceman-off-the-board","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/2022\/07\/13\/olli-maatta-contract-signed-ufa-defenceman-off-the-board\/","title":{"rendered":"Olli Maatta Contract Signed, UFA Defenceman Off-the-Board"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The Detroit Red Wings signed free agent defenceman Olli Maatta to a one-year contract worth $2.25 million. This contract carries him through the 2022-23 season.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Red Wings finalizing 1 year, $2.25 mil deal with Olli Maatta.<\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Darren Dreger (@DarrenDreger) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/DarrenDreger\/status\/1547260521908473857?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>Olli Maatta Signed Contract Entering 10th Season<\/h2>\n<p>Over his nine-year NHL career, Maatta played for the <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/category\/penguins\/\" target=\"_self\">Pittsburgh Penguins<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/2022\/07\/08\/adrian-kempe-signs-new-deal\/\" target=\"_self\">Los Angeles Kings<\/a>, and <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/category\/blackhawks\/\" target=\"_self\">Chicago Blackhawks<\/a> thus far. The Penguins drafted him back in 2012 with their first-round, 22nd overall selection. In total, Maatta collected 30 goals and 106 assists for 136 points through 534 career games. In 2021-22, he posted one goal and seven assists for eight points in 66 games.<\/p>\n<p>Maatta&#8217;s best years came early in his career as a member of the Penguins. He almost reached double-digit goal totals a few different times in Pittsburgh, something he hasn&#8217;t come close to replicating since. In 107 games as a King, Maatta scored just one goal and recorded only 12 points. His average ice time in LA sat a full minute below his career averages, as his performance resulted in less usage.<\/p>\n<h3>What This Means for the Future<\/h3>\n<p>Maatta enters 2022-23 with plenty to prove. His previous cap hit sat at a nice $4.083 million per season. That contract came from the Penguins in 2016, and just expired this summer. The size and length of that deal don&#8217;t really compare at all to this new deal, and understandably so after the decline in his performance.<\/p>\n<p>The Kings remain an up-and-coming team, ready to contend in a weak Pacific Division. Their rebuild took major strides forward in 2021-22. Their postseason appearance came as a surprise, a berth most expected to see the Vegas Golden Knights occupy. With Vegas&#8217; poor play down the stretch, and the Kings receiving contributions across their lineup, LA snuck in. Now, expectations bump a tad higher, and they expect to make the postseason again. With a large crop of young defencemen, expect them to make a splash in free agency. They hope to find someone closer to 2017-18 Maatta there, and less like 2021-22 Maatta.<\/p>\n<p><a id=\"8mEQiPoLSPtbY-INwsvLiQ\" class=\"gie-single\" style=\"color: #a7a7a7; text-decoration: none; font-weight: normal !important; border: none; display: inline-block;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.gettyimages.com\/detail\/1240674792\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Embed from Getty Images<\/a><script>window.gie=window.gie||function(c){(gie.q=gie.q||[]).push(c)};gie(function(){gie.widgets.load({id:'8mEQiPoLSPtbY-INwsvLiQ',sig:'EPuSf_KiD8MxbHaI_YCI4w-NOFXHf3G4E9V_ub7xDUI=',w:'594px',h:'396px',items:'1240674792',caption: true ,tld:'com',is360: false })});<\/script><script src='\/\/embed-cdn.gettyimages.com\/widgets.js' charset='utf-8' async><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Detroit Red Wings signed free agent defenceman Olli Maatta to a one-year contract worth $2.25 million. This contract carries him through the 2022-23 season. Red Wings finalizing 1 year, $2.25 mil deal with Olli Maatta. &mdash; Darren Dreger (@DarrenDreger) July 13, 2022 Olli Maatta Signed Contract Entering 10th Season Over his nine-year NHL career, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2377,"featured_media":130741,"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":[34,4,4547,24,4548],"tags":[4564,5911,5769,662,608],"class_list":["post-130626","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-redwings","category-hockey","category-kings","category-nhl","tag-defence","tag-detroit-red-wings-news","tag-los-angeles-kings-news","tag-nhl-free-agency","tag-olli-maatta"],"modified_by":"Dan Mount, Editor","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/130626","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\/2377"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=130626"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/130626\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/130741"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=130626"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=130626"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=130626"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}