{"id":447061,"date":"2024-10-23T12:31:25","date_gmt":"2024-10-23T16:31:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/?p=447061"},"modified":"2024-10-23T12:31:25","modified_gmt":"2024-10-23T16:31:25","slug":"veteran-defender-signed-to-a-contract-but-destination-maybe-a-surprise","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/2024\/10\/23\/veteran-defender-signed-to-a-contract-but-destination-maybe-a-surprise\/","title":{"rendered":"Veteran Defender Signed to a Contract But Destination Maybe a Surprise"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>He was one of the top remaining free agents from the summer of 2024, especially so among defencemen. The right-shot D-man <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hockey-reference.com\/players\/s\/schulju01.html?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2024-10-23_hr\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Justin Schultz<\/a> has <a  href=\"https:\/\/www.tsn.ca\/nhl\/veteran-d-justin-schultz-signs-one-year-deal-with-hc-lugano-1.2194131\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">signed a contract today<\/a>. This is a great pickup for the club as Schultz is a reliable, veteran defender who can provide offensive spark. However, given Schultz\u2019s willingness to look for a unique opportunity, the team may come as a surprise within NHL circles. He has signed a one-year deal in Switzerland with HC Lugano.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">As reported recently, Justin Schultz was searching for a unique opportunity in the later stages of his career. He&#39;s found that with HC Lugano in Switzerland and signed a contract for the remainder of the year.<\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Chris Johnston (@reporterchris) <a  href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/reporterchris\/status\/1849112559225393160?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">October 23, 2024<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<h3 style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Justin Schultz Signs a Contract<\/h3>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The 34-year-old Schultz is a 12-year veteran of the NHL. Throughout his career, he has had stretches of great success. His most significant contributions came with the <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/2024\/10\/22\/pittsburgh-penguins-coach-over-managing-remaining-costly\/\" target=\"_self\">Pittsburgh Penguins<\/a> during their back-to-back Stanley Cup Championships in 2016 and 2017. Furthermore, this included his best career season personally in 2016-17. That year he scored 12 goals, had 39 assists for 51 points, all three of which were career-highs. Nowadays, his ice time isn\u2019t quite at that level, but he is still very efficient when he is on the ice. At the NHL level, as a depth, third-pairing guy, he provides a lot of the desirable intangibles teams fighting for the playoffs seek. He will do likewise for his new Lugano club.<\/p>\n<h3 style=\"font-weight: 400;\">What Can He Bring to Lugano in 2024-25<\/h3>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">His best baseline for his expected performance in 2024-25, comes from his previous two season with the <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/2024\/10\/19\/kraken-captain-jordan-eberle-refreshed-early-in-season\/\" target=\"_self\">Seattle Kraken<\/a>. At one point in his career, he was up over 23 minutes a game. However, the past two seasons seen him at 17:47 and 16:28, in 2022-23 and 2023-24, respectively. Despite less ice, getting out against teams\u2019 secondary wave of players has proved successful for his continued productivity. His Corsi rating is still very elevated at 9.0 CF% Relative in 2023-24. His points per 60 minutes in the past two years was 1.6 and 1.4. For a defenceman, there\u2019s nothing wrong with that amount. How this translates to the Swiss league exactly is an unknown. However, expect him to be a main contributor to their backend.<\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Signing Justin Schultz to a contract is a great all-around move. This is the type of signing that competitive teams make. Adding a depth, veteran blueliner with Stanley Cup pedigree, what more could you ask for, especially for a Swiss-league club. He will slot in on the club\u2019s defence and be able to fill most any role. This will be a great pickup for Lugano when it comes to big competitions featuring the top teams.<\/p>\n<p>Main photo: James Carey Lauder-USA TODAY Sports<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>He was one of the top remaining free agents from the summer of 2024, especially so among defencemen. The right-shot D-man Justin Schultz has signed a contract today. This is a great pickup for the club as Schultz is a reliable, veteran defender who can provide offensive spark. However, given Schultz\u2019s willingness to look for [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4222,"featured_media":447063,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_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":[3271,4547,34,4548],"tags":[5738,380,662],"class_list":["post-447061","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-european-leagues","category-hockey","category-news","category-nhl","tag-hockey-news","tag-justin-schultz","tag-nhl-free-agency"],"modified_by":"Levi Pike, Editor","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/447061","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\/4222"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=447061"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/447061\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/447063"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=447061"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=447061"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=447061"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}