Trades are not the only thing going down these days. Teams are also looking to give peace of mind to some of their potential free agents in the Summer by giving them a new deal before they hit free agency. The Dallas Stars gave a new deal to
Steve Ott on Monday, signing him to a 4-year extension worth $11.8 million. That works out to a salary cap hit of $2.95 million per season.
Ott is turning himself into a player with a lot more intangibles, rather than just being a scoring or checking winger. In 52 games this season, Ott has 11 goals and 12 assists for 23 points, ranking him 278th in pool scoring this season. That's actually down from his ranking in the 2009 season, where he finished 156th with 46 points in total. Ott also has 100 PIM this season, which is in the league's top 30, ranks 6th in the league with 193 hits and does see some power play time with the team, scoring 4 PPG this season. He's becoming a good all-around player in his career.
Dallas is another one of those teams that are planning the use of their cap space for 2011 well and this deal is a good sign of that. At $2.95 million against, Ott brings the Stars' total up to $34.4 million for only 13 players for next season, which gives them ample space to sign the remaining 10 players to fill a full 23-man roster. Of the 13 players signed already, none of them are goaltenders, but the acquisition of
Kari Lehtonen earlier this year was a move to help that along, as he's a restricted free agent this summer and will have room for him going forward.
I'm a fan of
Steve Ott, so I think this is a really good move for the Stars. It keeps a franchise face with the club for another four years and he's the kind of character guy that a team should really be looking for to fill the role of utility player that's good for a lot of roles, including energy lines and power plays. For $3 million, I would imagine that the Stars will be looking for some better scoring, but its definitely well within his grasp.
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