After the Columbus Blue Jackets entered as a surprise team in the Johnny Gaudreau sweepstakes late this afternoon, the team has apparently signed the superstar forward, says Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman. According to TSN’s Chris Johnston, the deal is worth $9.75MM per season and will be paid entirely in salary (no bonuses), bringing the total value to $68.25MM. The Blue Jackets have confirmed the signing themselves, with Gaudreau set to meet the media tomorrow at 1:00 pm ET.
The theme of Gaudreau’s free agency had largely been about staying home, whether that meant staying with the only team he has ever played for, the Calgary Flames, or moving closer to his hometown in southern New Jersey. As a matter of course, the Philadelphia Flyers, Gaudreau’s childhood team, was a frontrunner for the winger’s services, along with nearby clubs who were also looking to add a dynamic forward in the New Jersey Devils and the New York Islanders. After Gaudreau informed Calgary of his intention to hit the open market and not return, the field dropped to just the other three. However, around the time that Flyers GM Chuck Fletcher had announced that the team was done signing free agents, effectively dropping them out of the Gaudreau bidding, a dark horse in the form of Columbus entered the race and won the war.
Of course not as close to southern New Jersey as Philadelphia, Newark, or Long Island, Columbus does bring Gaudreau much closer to the east coast of the United States as he appeared to want, and puts him as the centerpiece of what was already an exciting Blue Jackets build. Gaudreau will now team up with fellow star winger Patrik Laine and star defenseman Zach Werenski to form a fearsome trio to lead an otherwise solid Columbus team that features several young players and prospects with extremely high upside such as Kent Johnson and Cole Sillinger and the recently drafted David Jiricek and Denton Mateychuk.
An issue here for Columbus now, one certainly worth dealing with, is cap room. CapFriendly now projects Columbus to have just over $3.4MM in salary cap space, but with RFAs to re-sign including Nick Blankenburg, Emil Bemstrom, and the certainly-not-cheap Laine. In order to bring back their RFAs, Columbus will likely need to make another move to clear out some cap space.
Losing Gaudreau is clearly a massive blow to the Flames, this evening’s news not making much of a difference to the organization that saw one of it’s all-time great players move on. The team will now have to choose which direction to head in, with fellow superstar forward Matthew Tkachuk a pending RFA and set to hit the UFA market next summer. How Calgary and GM Brad Treliving play this offseason could determine whether the Flames choose to push forward, add talent back in, or rebuild, potentially necessitating a trade of Tkachuk.
For the Flyers, losing out on the opportunity to sign a hometown superstar may be difficult to take, however the team bowed out on its own accord, apparently looking to take a different path, with Gaudreau not part of the plan. For the Devils and Islanders, however, losing out on Gaudreau is tougher, having been part of the bidding and both needing to add an offensive weapon in order to take a step forward; the Devils looking to escape a years long rebuild and the Islanders looking to step back into the playoffs after back-to-back Conference Finals appearances followed by a miss of the postseason completely. Still, Gaudreau wasn’t the last chip the market had to offer, with Nazem Kadri still representing a star player and Ondrej Palat another point-producer, as well as J.T. Miller on the trade market, so options do remain.
Lastly, Gaudreau moving on from Calgary in favor of Columbus seems to bring Columbus full circle and bring back memories of 2019. It was on the first day of free agency (July 1st of that year to be exact) Columbus, who had a world of promise, lost three superstars in the form of Artemi Panarin, Matt Duchene and Sergei Bobrovsky to free agency, effectively instituting the mini-rebuild the franchise has undergone since. Today, Columbus switches roles, signing the superstar free agent with Calgary now evaluating its future.
He decided to take less money to live in Columbus than Calgary? Ok then.
He’s a lot loser to his family than he was but okay….I’m sure you knew that.
If he wanted to be by family in South Jersey, Columbus isn’t exactly top 5 in that department. Not sure if you knew that…
Yeah. What’s funny is a bunch of posters called him greedy in the previous thread and insisted it was all about $$$ and nothing else.
Great mind reading skills!
I’d rather live in Columbus than Calgary too. Also screw canadian taxes.
Good for CBJ – finally were able to sign a star player
The federal tax rate in Alberta is 5%, and Columbus is 7.5%, who’s tax rate is better?
Good news, we are happy you like it down there, Calgary has been rated one of the top five best cities to live in in the world twice in 5 years.. Columbus not so much ..most meth heads per capita?
There was an article that iirc Bryce Harper had a quote in that said most atheltes want to be close to family, but its awful playing where you grew up. You get friends asking for tickets and sort of never get to leave the drama. He said most people would prefer to play far enough that they have to travel. I think it was a veiled description of him potentially considering LA (hes from Vegas). It all made a lot more sense and Id bet it was at least partially the thought process here.
That’s not a fair comparison considering the exchange rate and all that. Not saying anything bad but it’s not apples to apples.
Are you sure you want to debate overall taxes even though the US is warp speeding under this administration to catch up to Canada’s sky high taxes.
Warp speeding? What tax increases? Don’t be ignorant.
I mean…I would
I read this and outwardly yelled “WHAT”
Excuse me?!!!! What!?
Oh…..My…..Gosh! :0
If you bet this was going to happen, you made alot of $$$!
Whoever put money on this is a rich, rich man.
Johnny hockey announces to the world I don’t want a cup. Just pay me
But he took less?
He took 10 mill less
Wanted out of Calgary so bad he went to Columbus for less.
Dang that’s pretty ignorant. Are you a Fox News viewer? He turned down 10M x years.
Even if that contract was backloaded which wasn’t reported, it can’t be just about the money.
Yes. JMartin just revealed his math skills.
This thread almost made 20 posts before someone brought up politics in it. Whee. :/
So the dumbest comment of the day bringing up politics goes to the radical left wing Weasel.
The irony is thick, Billy. Lol. Dislike someone making a political comment, so you make a political comment.
Politics are politics. Math is math. You don’t like liberals fine. But you’re missing the point because it was about an idiot claiming he made his choice for money when he actually took less.
You know, the usual angry rightist comment without actually reading the story or the context of my comment.
The original idiot and then you too. Read rightist for your sake spot being a reactionary moron
johnny hockey must be liberal since he took a dumb deal
What!?! Why?!?!
Gotta think both the Isles and Devils are begging Kadri to sign with them now.
No way. If this is true it’s a shocker
Good for him!
Geez Isles.
Cool, people in Columbus might learn they have a hockey team now.
Weird to leave Calgary to take less money to land in a city that is still far from his “home” and is far from contention.
Columbus is a huge hockey town. Go cry about it somewhere else. No one wants to live in the sh*thole that is calgary.
A “huge hockey town”.
Thank you for your input. I shall now ignore every other bit of evidence and think that.
You’re clearly from Pittsburgh and have a bias. I’m not a blue jackets fan but lived in Columbus for a few years. They get after it for Jackets games. but hey I just lived there for a few years and attended games… tf do I know?
Apparently not much. Living in a Canadian city with an nhl hockey team is worse than Columbus. Lol. Tf do you know lol
Where do they rank in attendance? Ticket prices? Ticket waiting lists? Corporate sponsors? TV ratings?
Or should we go with the handful of games you went to…?
If you like anecdotes, when the Pens play there, every random Yinzer grabs $20 tickets off the internet, makes the drive down 70 and TAKES OVER THE BUILDING.
I’ve rooted for Columbus to work, and still think it can, but it’s just silly to claim they aren’t a bottom third market.
PS- Has CBJ ever even once beat the Pens in a game that mattered…? Why would I have a bias?
TLDR.
Go cry about it some more.
That’s too long for you to read? Really? You are bragging about illiteracy? K.
A more reasonable reading is that you have no response.
But, OK…I’ll give you the cliff notes version…no crying, just destroying your silly homer delusion…
Columbus is one of the weakest markets in the NHL. Straight fact, not a value judgment.
actually Columbus is one of the most densely populated cities in the entire US , and is growing considerably
apparently economics isn’t your thing
LOL.
So, population is a direct correlation to hockey interest…?
Phoenix must be a HOCKEY MECCA, right? Let’s get a team to Houston ASAP, we’ll move it out of Minnesota, much smaller than Houston.
Simple.
That’s great, with the city growing there will be even more people who don’t care about the bluejackets
So much for Johnny messing with us. Remember, Johnny, there’s no Beezley at Nationwide for your goal calls, just KA-BOOM! It won’t be the same…
It was always about the cannon for Johnny Hockey. :D
Meanwhile, Predators fans once again get a box of rocks on UFA day. Charlie Brown wasn’t treated this badly. :/
I’d love to give you every UFA the Kraken signed today (notice that does not include Shane Wright). You can have them all for future considerations.
@Gbear – As Lucy stands over him and says, “It could be worse.” CB: “How?” Lucy: “You could’ve had the football pulled away AND been traded to the Ky-yoots for cap space!” KA-BOOM! :)
@Mac – Oh, that proverbial UFA football is pulled away every July. That top 6 winger is more elusive than the Great Pumpkin. :/
His stated desire to stay in Calgary was obviously bogus. Quite certain they offered considerably more.
Quick, name a city in Ohio. Cleveland, Cincinnati, Dayton. I was shocked that the population of Columbus is more than those three combined. That said, not only what was Johnny thinking, but couldn’t the Islanders or Devils had made a more attractive offer? I imagine the reaction around the league is the same as here – say what??
That’s a cool stat!
Calgary…….you’ve just been Tavaresed!
Guess he wanted to jump ship before Matthew Tkachuk out of town.
Still say he didn’t like Sutter to much…Hockey is a business and business makes $$$$ So way to go Johnny Hockey..
What’s more surprising, that Gaudreau signed in Columbus, or that he’s not even their highest paid player? What a coup by Jarmo!
The bigger story here might be “how did the Devils blow it?”
More cap space, closer to his home, a better group of young player. Did they just lowball?
A better group of young players? That’s debatable. I mean CBJ was able to be nearly .500 last year with half their goalie tandem hurt. They could easily be a playoff team this year, I doubt that’s the case for NJ even if they got JG.
It can be debated, sure, but after the debate I’d still vote for NJ because CBJ does not have a Jack Hughes.
He could be in the Art Ross conversation one day, none of the young Jackets profile near that level.
So one guy, yea great the devil’s had a guy like that before named Taylor Hall, and it didn’t lead to much. I’ll take a team of promising prospects over one guy. Not even a fan of either team but CBJ is looking like they could be a threat, good goalie, young talented defense, and now they have added more goal scoring.
“I’ll take a team of promising prospects over one guy. ”
Sure, why wouldn’t you take the obviously superior hypothetical you create in your mind over the obviously inferior hypothetical you create in your mind…?
But, back in reality, does CBJ have “a team over of promising prospects” while NJ has only “one guy”?
This actually makes more sense than it first appears. JG wanted to be a Flyer, Flyers couldn’t move contracts to make that happen, JG didn’t want to play for a fierce division rival of his preferred Flyers destination, so he signs with an eastern conference team closer to home but far enough away from Philly.
There you have it! :)
Flyers simply did not have the cap space to sign Gaudreau. Maybe if Fletcher hadn’t give Ristolainen $5.1 million a season, they could’ve made a run at Johnny Hockey, but he did and so no Gaudreau.
Flyers have a knack for signing and trading for mediocre defensemen
WOW. I really hope Yzerman reached out to him. I would have given him a max contract to come to Detroit.
Back In the USA!!!!!!
cue ‘For Those About To Rock’…. ‘FIRE!!!’
CBJ w/the F.A. steal of 22′
Issue for the Jackets now is: they have about 3 or 4 million left in cap space and have Laine at at least 7.5M to still sign. Someone has to go unless they have some LTIR trick up their sleeves.
I feel like gaudreau is there to replace Laine
Roam Hockey pointed out this tidbit about what Johnny G left on the table with both NJ & Calgary….
Net was under $100k from both teams.
Hi John,
Here is more information regarding Gaudreau money. FYI, there is bonus. Please add it to this story.
link to twitter.com
link to puckpedia.com
capfriendly.com/players/johnny-gaudreau
Regarding NMC, according to capfriendly & puckpedia. it’s only from Years 1-4 not years 1-5, then years 5-7 M-NTC.
Johnny Gaudreau’s 7 year $9.75M #CBJ deal:
All 7 years, $7.75M Salary & $2M Signing Bonus
No Move Clause Years 1-5, then 10 team Approved Trade List