Who wants more Olli Maatta trading fodder?
It doesn’t Maatta! You're getting it.
The next Maatta trade is not something I came up with. It is one I heard and I am passing along. I heard the following suggestion from The Only Pittsburgh Sports Podcast with Dan Hopper and Sean Gentille
The trade suggestion came from @smwitmer87 and both Dan and Sean elaborated on it.
Olli Maatta and Daniel Sprong to the Carolina Hurricanes for Justin Faulk.
The Hurricanes have been shopping Justin Faulk the past few months. It appears they are totally comfortable moving forward with Dougie Hamilton and Brett Pesce as their top right side defenseman and I can’t really blame them.
Let’s talk about what makes sense about the suggestion
The Penguins could really use a right handed defenseman with Schultz out long term. The Hurricanes seem content on moving one of them. So there’s a start. Pittsburgh really only has Kris Letang who is an effective right handed defenseman on the roster right now so it is a real need for the team.
Faulk is great at generating shots and I imagine playing with more gifted offensive players aren’t going to hurt him. His passing strengths are transition which seems to be a need.
Some other things that make sense about mentioning Justin Faulk is that his cap hit is 4.8M, but his salary is 6M. Carolina is dead last in the NHL in spending money so shedding the 6M payout is probably appealing.
Who drafted Justin Faulk? Jim Rutherford.
The Hurricanes are a great possession team, but need to translate that into more goals. You can hide a player with a great shot on a strong possession team in order to chase more goals. This would be where Daniel Sprong came into the equation. Despite leading the NHL in possession they are 21st in goals per game at 5v5.
So now the Olli Maatta part of the trade. This is where things might fall apart. The Hurricanes have Jaccob Slavin, Calvin de Haan (somebody Pittsburgh should have used cap space on), and Haydn Fleury. I’m not sure they would have a desire to unload Justin Faulk in order to add another left handed defenseman who would be on the third pair. I’m also not sold on Eric Tulsky being enamored with Olli Maatta’s underlying numbers.
If Olli Maatta is the main piece of the trade and there really isn’t a huge need for him in Carolina I can’t see it come to fruition.
Back to the trade Maatta drawing board we go.
I have some other ideas related to Justin Faulk for Friday
Thanks for reading!
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