During this morning's end-of-season media availability to tie a bow on the Senators' 2024-25 campaign, general manager Steve Staios kept his cards close to his vest.
When asked whether the organization had made any decisions on its impending free agents, Staios elected not to disclose any information regarding the team's business.
Hours later, the organization revealed that they had signed restricted free agent defenceman Nik Matinpalo to a two-year extension carrying an average annual value of $875,000.
Considering how Staios' predecessor would have used the opportunity to announce an impending contract signing, today's modest afternoon reveal reinforces that the organization is in a different era.
"Nik took a significant step this season and proved he could be a valuable contributor at the NHL level," Staios said in the team's official press release. "We look forward to his continued growth."
The right-shot defenceman played 41 games for the Senators this season while playing predominantly as a regular on the third pairing in the second half of the season.
In his 41 games, Matinpalo contributed a goal and four points while averaging 12:37 of ice time per game. The 26-year-old Finnish defenceman played in each of the Senators' six postseason games. He was held pointless in those contests but had a +1 plus/minus rating while averaging 13:04 of ice time.
As a big and rangy skater, Matinpalo earned praise for coming out of relative obscurity and not looking out of place. He signed with the Senators as an undrafted free agent out of the Finnish Liiga during the 2023 offseason.
Getting Matinpalo's contract done early is a tidy piece of business because he represents depth on the right side. With the likelihood that Travis Hamonic has played his last game with the organization and news out of the Senators' locker clean-out day that Nick Jensen refused to disclose his injury or the potential medical solutions for it, it is paramount for the Senators to solidify the right defence position.
The interesting wrinkle about Matinpalo's season is that he was never entrusted to play minutes in the team's top four following Jensen's injury.
Although Jensen received treatment that allowed him to continue to play, there were times when the organization elected to rest the veteran. Rather than slide Matinpalo into those minutes, the coaching staff preferred to dress Travis Hamonic and give the veteran those responsibilities.
Part of that decision is probably rooted in the fact that Travis Green and his staff likely did not want to break up the third pairing of Matinpalo and Tyler Kleven. Matinpalo's inexperience also probably factored into the decision.
Looking at Matinpalo's analytics, his isolated impacts, according to HockeyViz, are intriguing.
The offensive impacts certainly mirror the eye test. His struggles to move the puck efficiently inevitably impacted the Senators' breakouts and ability to create offence.
More importantly, however, his defensive impact was quite good.
The question facing Matinpalo is how much his defensive impacts benefited from sheltered minutes playing alongside Tyler Kleven — one of the Senators' better defensive defencemen.
Evolving-Hockey's defensive pairing data shows that the Kleven/Matinpalo pairing played 38 games, spending 362 minutes of five-on-five ice time together.
In those minutes, the Senators generated:
48.53 percent of the shots (CF%)
45.58 percent of the shots on goal (SF%)
43.90 percent of the goals (GF%)
40.20 percent of the expected goals (xGF%)
That 40.20 xGF% was the lowest-recorded metric among all the defensive combinations used by the Senators who logged more than 30 minutes of ice time together.
The hope is that Matinpalo's combination of youth and a lack of experience at the NHL level will lead to more growth and development. But, at this stage of his career, there is a probability that this current version of Matinpalo is simply what he is.
The good news is that he is inked to an inexpensive multi-year deal, so there is little pressure or risk involved. At his worst, he still represents quality NHL depth that the organization has years of familiarity with.
Matinpalo's signing means that the Senators now have three regulars at right defence under contract for the 2024-25 season — which should afford the organization more time and freedom to explore avenues to improve their quality of depth.
Matinpalo's signing is part of the puzzle, but as I articulated in a piece yesterday on Nick Jensen's uncertain health and timeline, it is imperative that the organization searches for another top-four defenceman.
Graeme Nichols
The Hockey News - Ottawa