Defenseman Paul Martin is going into the final season of his five-year, $25 million contract, but he doesn’t anticipate the Pittsburgh Penguins engaging in negotiations with him at the moment.
“My mindset going in is to have a good year no matter what happens,” Martin told the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review.
“You can’t worry about that stuff. I just want to play my best hockey.”
His agent and the Penguins did touch base in June, but there wasn’t much progress made. One possible factor is the Penguins’ cap situation given that they already have nearly $48 million committed to 11 players for the 2015-16 campaign. If the ceiling continues to rise steadily, then that might not be a major obstacle, but if it doesn’t, then Pittsburgh will have to adjust accordingly.
Martin will also be 34 years old when his contract expires and is coming off of a season where he was limited to 39 games due to a variety of injuries, so that could be part of the reason why the two sides don’t appear to be close to the point of agreeing to terms. When Martin was healthy though, he averaged a team-high 24:34 minutes per game in 2013-14.