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Tomas Tatar had 19 goals and 20 assists for the Detroit Red Wings last season.

(AP File Photo)

Ken Holland envisions Tomas Tatar as somebody who can help the Detroit Red Wings return to the days when they had offensive production throughout the lineup.

With that in mind, the Red Wings general manager signed Tatar Monday to a three-year contract extension worth $2.75 million per season.

Tatar, 23, established himself as an offensive force for the Red Wings last season – his first full campaign in the NHL – by scoring 19 goals to go with 20 assists in 73 games while helping Detroit extend its playoff streak to 23 seasons despite a season-long rash of injuries.

"He's 24 years of age this year; his best years are ahead of him," Holland said. "He's a guy that plays hard. He goes to the hard areas. He played with a lot of kids (last season). We had so many injuries a lot of our veterans went down. Tats is a very important guy to our team.

"He's an important guy going forward. If we can get healthy, we want to roll four lines and get points up and down the lineup. For two years in a row, we haven't scored enough. Part of it is health. Part of it is when we had Nick Lidstrom running the power play we used to score more on the power play.

"We're not as efficient on the power play as we once were."

Tatar, the Red Wings second-round pick (60th overall) in the 2009 NHL draft, played nine games with Detroit in 2010-11 and 18 more the following season before joining the club full-time last season.

He assumed a key role when injuries sidelined Red Wings such as Henrik Zetterberg, Pavel Datsyuk, Johan Franzen, Darren Helm, Stephen Weiss and Daniel Alfredsson for long stretches.

That allowed Tatar, Gustav Nyquist, Riley Sheehan and Tomas Jurco among others to assume larger roles than they might have otherwise.

"I'm hoping that if we can get healthy – with the development of Nyquist, the development of Sheehan, the development of Tatar – we're able to put four lines together," Holland said. "We're going to get offense up and down the lineup. That's the hope.

"The role for Tats is probably one of our top-line forwards. We're hoping we can roll three lines, for sure, that can really score and the fourth line can kill penalties and chip in. That's the way we built our team for a lot of years.

"We need guys like Pav and Z and Helmer and Franzen to be able to play 70-75 games. We're going to get offense from a lot of the kids with Tats being one of them."

Signing Tatar leaves defenseman Danny DeKeyser as the Red Wings only restricted free agent who has yet to sign.

DeKeyser said last weekend he doesn't anticipate any problem coming to an agreement with the Red Wings after spending his first full year in the NHL last season and Holland doesn't expect any issues either.

"I don't see any problem," Holland said. "We're going to want to get him signed. I talked 3-4 times with his camp in June and a little bit shortly after the draft. We haven't talked in a little bit. But again, I'm motivated to get him signed. I think Danny wants to get signed.

"Once you get into early July, everybody's focus is free agency for a couple of weeks. Going forward, now we can find a solution. I'm confident we can get him done."

Holland said a decision on the status of Alfredsson, who battled a back injury last season, won't be made until he begins skating a couple of weeks before training camp begins Sept. 19 in Traverse City.

Holland also said the Red Wings are in the market for a video coordinator after Keith McKittrick resigned to accept an assistant coach's job with the Portland Winterhawks of the WHL.

The Red Wings also have yet to fill another vacancy on Mike Babcock's staff created when assistant coach Tom Renney accepted a job as president and CEO of Hockey Canada.

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