The Detroit Red Wings signed Olli Maatta to a two year extension yesterday, with a cap hit of $3.0M. Maatta was a pending unrestricted free agent. Let’s take a closer look.
The Player: Olli Maatta
Maatta has been used throughout the lineup for the Red Wings during his first season in Detroit. Results have been streaky, with this season’s results driving some large variations in his projected impact. Generally, he’s profiled as a 2nd pair defenseman in the model this season.
Maatta will be 29 when this deal kicks in next season, approaching the end of his prime seasons. There’s some risk that age related decline could start to creep in during the deal, although it’s relatively small. He profiles as a third pair defenseman in next season’s model and, as long as he’s not asked to do too much, it’s more likely we’ll see stable results for the next two seasons.
The Team: Detroit Red Wings
The Red Wings prospect cupboards are well stocked, ranking 3rd in the Hockey Prospecting model. They seemed to signal their intent to start powering out of their rebuild with the addition of some veterans last offseason to supplement their young core. Included in that prospect pool are a number of young defensemen who could soon push for an NHL roster spot, headlined by Simon Edvinsson.
Maatta replaces a replacement level player on next season’s roster. Adding a third pair impact defenseman, the Red Wings’ profile shows only a slight improvement. They still have a number of pending UFAs and have committed less than 60% of next season’s cap though, so they still have plenty of flexibility to mold next year’s roster.
The Verdict
The $3.0M cap hit is a bit on the high side, but is reasonable for Maatta’s projected impact considering the cap hits of other similar impact defensemen around the league. There are certainly options available to spend more efficiently on a bottom pair defenseman, but the Wings have the cap space available at the moment to make this deal work.
The two year term makes this seem like a stop gap measure to buy a bit more time for the Red Wings defense prospects to develop. The addition of Maatta gives them a capable NHL defenseman to hold down the fort until their young defensemen are ready for NHL duty. That time may come sooner that later, but the short duration makes the deal tradeable if the Wings decide they want to move on.
The Wings’ defense corps for the 23/24 season is taking shape. It’s rather underwhelming at the moment but, with plenty of cap space available for next season, the Wings are well positioned to look at adding a top pair defenseman or two. Extending pending UFA Jake Walman is one obvious option and adding a partner for him via an external addition could round out an improving Red Wings defense corps nicely.
Having a known commodity in Maatta helps round out the bottom of the rotation. If a prospect like Edvinsson pushes their way into the NHL lineup, Maatta becomes a good fit as a veteran 7th defenseman. If the youngsters aren’t quite ready for NHL duty, Maatta can fill a bottom pair role for the short term.
Historical player data from Natural Stat Trick. Contract data from CapFriendly.
