The Edmonton Oilers announced a bit of housekeeping on Monday, re-signing restricted free agent Iiro Pakarinen to a one-year contract. 

This isn’t a terribly surprising development. Pakarinen was hurt in the early going and as a result didn’t get much chance to impress Todd McLellan in training camp, leading to an early AHL assignment. He ended up spending just four games in Bakersfield, however, earning a recall and then sticking with the Oilers the rest of the way. 

Pakarinen bounced around the lineup but had decent results in what was mostly a fourth-line role. 

He clicked especially well with Anton Lander; the two played a little over 2.5 hours together at even-strength, and the Oilers had a 51 percent Corsi rating and broke even in the goals department with that duo on the ice. That’s really good for a fourth line, especially one which started a lot of shifts in the defensive zone. 

Like most Oilers, Pakarinen struggled when placed with fellow Finn Lauri Korpikoski. He spent the same amount of time with Korpikoski as he had with Lander. but as a duo the two were in the red by 16 shot attempts per hour and were out-scored by a 2:1 margin. 

Pakarinen is a complementary player with limited offensive ability, but in a lot of ways he’s an ideal NHL fourth-liner. He does have some scoring talent, putting up 20 goals in his final year in Finland and recording 31 points in 43 career AHL games; that’s probably enough to keep him in the league in a depth role. Beyond that he’s big (6’1″, 215 pounds), physical, defensively responsible and able to play minutes on the penalty kill. 

At least as importantly, he really is in the prime of his career. Pakarinen turns 25 in August, and most aging studies on NHL players have found that they peak offensively at the age of 25-26. 

He’s also cheap. On a $725,000 contract he’s ideally priced to be a No. 13/14 forward, and can even be dumped into the minors without cap ramifications if it comes to that. If, as I expect, he’s able to play a regular fourth line role, he’ll be a relative bargain. 

Pakarinen has earned good reviews for his professionalism all down the line. Early in his tenure with the Oilers organization, then-AHL head coach Todd Nelson described him as “a consummate professional” who worked hard in all areas and brought an uncommon maturity for a player his age. One would imagine that Edmonton doesn’t mind the idea of having a player like that around as a resource for fellow Finn Jesse Puljujarvi. 

There’s no downside to this deal. Pakarinen is a versatile, capable fourth-liner in the prime of his career, and just for good measure Oilers G.M. Peter Chiarelli was able to sign him to a contract lower than his qualifying offer. All in all, this represents a very nice deal for Edmonton.