Veteran free agent center Paul Stastny isn’t interested in proving his worth to potential suitors on a PTO during training camp and is only interested in firm contract offers, Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman said on Friday’s edition of the 32 Thoughts podcast.
Stastny, 37, was relegated to a bottom-six role for the first time in his NHL career last season with the Carolina Hurricanes. It took him quite a while to ink a deal last summer, too — he ended up signing a one-year, $1.5M contract with Carolina on Aug. 23, but that was still well in advance of training camp.
There’s now less than a week remaining before this year’s camps kick off and Stastny still finds himself on the outside looking in. He’s coming off a 2022-23 season that saw him notch nine goals and a career-low 13 assists for 22 points in 73 games while averaging just 11:52 per game.
Playing a fourth-line role for Stastny was quite a change of pace. Colorado’s second-round pick in the 2005 NHL Entry Draft had never averaged less than 17 minutes per game in a season during his career. Injuries aren’t a concern for him heading into next season — he didn’t miss any time with Carolina last season due to injuries and hasn’t missed significant time since the 2018-19 season with the Vegas Golden Knights.
While his offensive ability and foot speed may be diminished from his peak, he’s still the reliable two-way presence he’s been throughout his career and would carry value as a fourth-line center. This isn’t anything new, either. His offensive pace has largely seen a linear path downward since his age-30 season back in 2015-16.
With Stastny like to reprise a fourth-line role next season, however, his options for any contract much above the $775K league minimum are slim to none. Most teams with vacancies at the petition have also gone the PTO route to evaluate options for the role — namely, the Edmonton Oilers, who have brought in Sam Gagner and Brandon Sutter as veteran options on tryouts in addition to free agent acquisition Lane Pederson.
Most of the teams that do still have openings also have younger centers in play to make the team and likely wouldn’t want to box them out of a job by giving Stastny a guaranteed contract.
It’ll be interesting to see if Stastny changes his tune by this time next week if he remains without an NHL home. He likely still has at least one solid season of hockey left in him and is still chasing a Stanley Cup after suiting up in 1,145 regular-season games across 17 seasons.
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