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Somber Olli Maatta looks ahead to uncertain future with Penguins

Jonathan Bombulie
| Thursday, April 18, 2019 11:48 a.m.
Chaz Palla | Tribune-Review
The Penguins’ Olli Maatta back in the line up against the Predators in the first period March 29, 2019 at PPG Paints Arena.

Two years ago, Olli Maatta’s season ended with a sun-soaked nap on an apartment balcony after the Pittsburgh Penguins celebrated a second straight Stanley Cup with a parade down Grant Street.

On Thursday morning, as the Penguins cleaned out their lockers in Cranberry, his season-ending mood was decidedly more somber.

Maatta missed the last three games of a first-round sweep by the New York Islanders as a healthy scratch.

“Obviously you want to be playing,” Maatta said. “It’s not easy.”

This offseason, the Penguins need to alleviate a salary-cap pinch and will likely want to change up their personnel to try to retool for another run at a championship. Both factors point toward Maatta possibly being moved in a summer trade.

“You don’t try to think of that,” Maatta said. “I guess all you can do is just go and have a good summer and what happens happens.”

Maatta said he won’t need surgery to repair a shoulder injury that kept him sidelined from Feb. 11 to March 29.

“I felt I played pretty well at the end of the regular season,” Maatta said. “Obviously didn’t have a good game in Game 1.”

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