{"id":41415,"date":"2019-02-12T17:28:02","date_gmt":"2019-02-12T22:28:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/?p=41415"},"modified":"2020-12-26T16:34:24","modified_gmt":"2020-12-26T21:34:24","slug":"pittsburgh-penguins-place-olli-maatta-on-injured-reserve","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/2019\/02\/12\/pittsburgh-penguins-place-olli-maatta-on-injured-reserve\/","title":{"rendered":"Pittsburgh Penguins Place Olli Maatta on Injured Reserve"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.hockey-reference.com\/players\/m\/maattol01.html?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Olli Maatta<\/a><\/strong> was placed on Injured Reserve by the <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonhockey.com\/nhl-teams\/penguins\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Pittsburgh Penguins<\/a> Tuesday afternoon. The move comes after the defenseman left Mondays game with an upper-body injury.<\/p>\n<h1>Olli Maatta Injured<\/h1>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">The Penguins have placed defenseman Olli Maatta on injured reserve. Maatta will be out indefinitely after suffering an upper-body injury in last night&#39;s game against the Flyers.<\/p>\n<p>Details: <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/8tkrWpWd9K\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">https:\/\/t.co\/8tkrWpWd9K<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/lwzT8oGddP\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">pic.twitter.com\/lwzT8oGddP<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Pittsburgh Penguins (@penguins) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/penguins\/status\/1095409399437377536?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">February 12, 2019<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>Maatta suffered the injury during the first period of Monday&#8217;s game against the<a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonhockey.com\/nhl-teams\/flyers\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"> Philadelphia Flyers<\/a>. He collided awkwardly with Flyers forward <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.hockey-reference.com\/players\/v\/varonph01.html?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Phil Varone<\/a><\/strong> while chasing a puck in the Penguins zone. Varone shoved Maatta, who ultimately fell to the ice. He came down hard on his left shoulder and was slow to get up.<\/p>\n<p>Maatta exited the ice and immediately went down the tunnel. He did not return to the game. Due to his absence, the Penguins finished the contest with five defensemen. Veteran <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.hockey-reference.com\/players\/l\/letankr01.html?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Kris Letang<\/a><\/strong> saw a significant amount of ice time, logging over 31 minutes in Pittsburgh&#8217;s 4-1 victory. The extra playing time allowed him to record his 109th goal. The game-winning\u00a0goal a new record for goals by a defenseman with the club.<\/p>\n<p>In 55 games this season, Maatta has tallied one goal and 12 assists for 13 points. He owns 25 goals and 81 assists for 106 points over his total 357 career games.<\/p>\n<h2>What this means for the Future<\/h2>\n<p>Penguins head coach <a href=\"http:\/\/www.hockey-reference.com\/players\/s\/sullimi01.html?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Mike Sullivan<\/a> confirmed after the game that the defenseman suffered an upper-body injury. He will undergo further evaluation. He was officially moved to IR Tuesday and is considered out indefinitely.<\/p>\n<p>Maatta&#8217;s injury leaves a critical void to fill. He typically logs around 18 minutes of ice time a night. Furthermore, he is part of the Penguins second powerplay unit. Defenseman <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.hockey-reference.com\/players\/s\/schulju01.html?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Justin Schultz<\/a><\/strong> has been absent for over two months after suffering a gruesome leg injury resulting in a fracture that required surgical correction. Currently, he is on track to make his way back to the Penguins bench for his predicted February return.<\/p>\n<p>If Schultz&#8217;s recovery stays on track, he would be a definite candidate to take Maattas place during his absence. Letang will continue to see more minutes with Maatta out as well.<\/p>\n<p>Main Photo:<br \/>\n<a id=\"3UPXoJVHQLVZD8GNtWDFFw\" class=\"gie-single\" href=\"http:\/\/www.gettyimages.com\/detail\/1070341680\" target=\"_blank\" style=\"color:#a7a7a7;text-decoration:none;font-weight:normal !important;border:none;display:inline-block;\" 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:'3UPXoJVHQLVZD8GNtWDFFw',sig:'Mf5g1C8-TQTWVJ-h9C5do3p2ZvzQkohydpKSfjJn5t4=',w:'594px',h:'396px',items:'1070341680',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>Olli Maatta was placed on Injured Reserve by the Pittsburgh Penguins Tuesday afternoon. The move comes after the defenseman left Mondays game with an upper-body injury. Olli Maatta Injured The Penguins have placed defenseman Olli Maatta on injured reserve. Maatta will be out indefinitely after suffering an upper-body injury in last night&#39;s game against the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2818,"featured_media":41420,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","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":[34,12],"tags":[5738,2569,955,608,44],"class_list":["post-41415","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-penguins","tag-hockey-news","tag-news","tag-nhl-news","tag-olli-maatta","tag-pittsburgh-penguins"],"modified_by":"Daniel Brown, Editor","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41415","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\/2818"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=41415"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41415\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/41420"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=41415"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=41415"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=41415"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}