It was a bit of a rocky start to the season for Andreas Athanasiou, who missed all of training camp, preseason and the first 10 regular season games due to a contract holdout.
The Red Wings and Athanasiou finally came to an agreement on a one-year deal for $1,387,500 and Athanasiou returned to the lineup on Oct. 26 at Tampa Bay.
Although Athanasiou was arbitration-eligible this summer, the two sides managed to avoid that as the Red Wings re-signed Athanasiou to a two-year contract on July 5. The deal has an average annual value of $3 million.
Although there are few players in the league with Athanasiou's combination of speed and game-breaking offensive ability, he still has some work to do to learn the defensive nuances of the game.
The Wings originally drafted Athanasiou, 23, in the fourth round of the 2012 NHL Entry Draft, 110th overall.
33 -- The 33 points Athanasiou had in 71 games this past season represented a new career best, topping the 29 points he had during the 2016-17 season.
16 -- Athanasiou had 16 goals, which tied him with Dylan Larkin and Frans Nielsen for third most on the team. Anthony Mantha was first with 24 and Gustav Nyquist was second with 21. He had 18 goals last season.
17-- Athanasiou registered 17 assists this season, a new career best, surpassing the 11 assists he had in 64 games last year.
150 -- On Feb. 22, Athanasiou played in his 150th career NHL game as the Wings hosted the Buffalo Sabres at Little Caesars Arena, a 3-2 overtime loss. He had three shots in 16:12 and finished even. He finished the season with 172 career games under his belt.
170 -- Athanasiou's 170 shots were a new career high and ranked fifth on the team behind Larkin's 232, Nyquist's 213, Mantha's 190 and captain Henrik Zetterberg's 180. During the 2016-17 season, Athanasiou had 120 shots.
1 -- Athanasiou had one overtime goal, tying him for the team lead with Tomas Tatar and Trevor Daley.
6 -- That overtime goal came on Jan. 3 at home against the Ottawa Senators. What made it particularly noteworthy is that it happened just six seconds into overtime, which tied a league record. Athanasiou is the first to score six seconds into overtime since the 3-on-3 format started during the 2015-16 season. The others who have scored six seconds into overtime are Toronto's Mats Sundin against the St. Louis Blues on Dec. 30, 1995; Nashville's David Legwand against the Vancouver Canucks on March 9, 2006; and Washington's Alex Ovechkin against the Atlanta Thrashers on Dec. 15, 2006.
