Blackhawks upgrade defense with Olli Maatta acquisition

The Blackhawks began their offseason defensive overhaul Saturday by acquiring left-handed blueliner Olli Maatta from the Penguins for center Dominik Kahun and a fifth-round pick — No. 151 overall — in the NHL Draft, which begins Friday.

Maatta, who turns 25 in August, brings six years of NHL experience — all with Pittsburgh — and an up-and-down track record to the Hawks.

“He’s not necessarily a bruising defenseman, but I like the fact he’s got an active stick,” general manager Stan Bowman said Sunday. “He’s good at using his body to shield the front of the net. And he’s shown the ability to be used in several different situations over the past few years for Pittsburgh.”

Maatta’s inconsistency has never been starker than in the last two seasons.

In 2017-18, he played all 82 games, matched a career high (dating to his 2013-14 rookie season) with 29 points and served as an effective puck-moving defenseman in all three zones.

But in 2018-19, he missed nearly two months because of injury, recorded just 14 points and slipped tremendously in his own zone, ending up a healthy scratch for the last three games of the Penguins’ first-round sweep.

The Hawks are counting on Maatta, who has all the tools to be a reliable top-four defender, to bounce back in 2019-20.

“I’m not going to say it was a terrible season, but I knew I can be way better than I played last season,” Maatta said Sunday from his native Finland. “[Chicago is] a new opportunity, that’s how you have to look at it, and I’m just trying to better myself through that way.”

He has good size at 6-2, 206 pounds and has been a positive possession player in four of his six seasons. He also is signed for three more years at a roughly $4 million cap hit.

In other words, Maatta almost certainly won’t singlehandedly fix the team’s defensive struggles, but he likely will help.

“His strengths are something that were not strengths for us, and that would be his ability to defend,” Bowman added.

Someone will likely need to head out to make room for him, though. The Hawks now have seven defensemen under contract, plus Gustav Forsling as a restricted free agent and Henri Jokiharju to fit into the depth chart.

Bowman indicated the Hawks may still try to stockpile a few more defensemen than necessary to see who sticks during training camp, but that stockpile can only be so big — especially with more additions likely on the way.

Maatta joins an oversized left-handed group that also includes Duncan Keith, Slater Koekkoek, Erik Gustafsson, Carl Dahlstrom and Forsling. The latter three each stand a chance of being moved.

Meanwhile, the Hawks will hope their two European signings this spring — Anton Wedin and Dominik Kubalik — can offset the loss of Kahun, who was a reliable defensive forward in the bottom six last year and quietly scored 37 points.