Blackhawks: The One Retained Contract Still In The Organization

The Chicago Blackhawks traded Olli Maatta to the Los Angeles Kings last off-season and since then they have been paying a little of his salary. The Blackhawks got Brad Morrison out of the deal whom the team then sent to Florida for Vinnie Hinostroza this past season.

Chicago has made a lot of different deals over the past couple of years, but going into next season only one will still be on the books.

Right now the Chicago Blackhawks are paying three different salaries that are not on their team. They retained a million of Brandon Saad‘s contract, they retained 1.125 million of Mattias Janmark‘s contract, and they retained $750,000 of Olli Maatta’s contract last off-season.

Maatta was a little overpriced at 4 million so the Hawks had to hold back some of the salaries to get the Kings to take on his deal. Personally, I do not think it is that much of a loss that they are going to be paying about a million in cap space for Maatta. The team is not in desperate need of cap space despite having a handful of players on expiring deals right now.

The Blackhawks might have to retain a few other contracts as well.

Cap space is a luxury in the NHL, and the Chicago Blackhawks are going to want to have as much of it as they can. Now the real reason to talk about Olli Maatta in this article is that every team can not have more than three retained contracts on the books during a single season. So right now the team currently has those three in Saad, Janmark, and Maatta. Next season though that number will go down to just one with just Maatta.

So maybe Chicago will try and trade away a contract like Brent Seabrook or Andrew Shaw‘s this off-season in order to maximize the space on the roster. There certainly is a lot that the Blackhawks can do this off-season to rebuild their team.