Maatta assigned to Wilkes-Barre/Scranton, Sundqvist recalled

The Penguins assigned defenseman Olli Maatta to Wilkes-Barre/Scranton of the American Hockey League and recalled center Oskar Sundqvist from the Baby Penguins today.

Taken at face value, the moves -- especially the demotion of Maatta, one of the Penguins’ best defensemen -- were stunning, but they were just part of the team’s salary-cap maneuvering as the 5 p.m. deadline for regular-season rosters approached.

The Penguins were trying to get as close as possible to the salary-cap ceiling of $71.4 million so that they can get maximum relief when they place one or more players on the Long-Term Injured list, after the season begins.

Forwards Eric Fehr, Pascal Dupuis and Tom Kuhnhackl are candidates for LTI.

Maatta will be present when the Penguins open the regular season in Dallas Thursday and Sundqvist is expected to be back in Wilkes-Barre by then.

Even if he goes back, it’s possible the Penguins will recall a forward because they have only 12 healthy ones on the major-league roster at the moment.

There are two reasons Maatta and Sundqvist were the players involved in today’s transactions.

Both are on entry-level contracts and do not need waivers to move between the Penguins and Wilkes-Barre/Scranton.

Also, moving Maatta’s $894,166 salary cap hit off the NHL roster and adding Sundqvist’s cap hit of $700,833 brought the Penguins within $32,917 of the cap ceiling.

The Penguins have made similar moves in in previous seasons and have even sent players to the Wheeling Nailers of the ECHL for such purposes.

(Note: All financial totals are from GeneralFanager.com.)