The Columbus Blue Jackets are keeping pending restricted free agent defenseman Adam Boqvist around for three more seasons, per the team. The deal has a total value of $7.8MM and an average annual value of $2.6MM, taking him through the 2024-25 season.
General manager Jarmo Kekalainen gave the following statement on Boqvist’s extension:
Adam is a talented, mobile defenseman with the ability and creativity to provide offense from the blueline. Despite some injuries, he had a very good first season with our club at the age of 21 and as he gets bigger and stronger, we believe he has the potential to be a very impactful player in this league.
Losing time to those aforementioned injuries, Boqvist finished the 2021-22 season — his first in Columbus — with 11 goals, 11 assists, and 22 points in 55 games. In his third NHL season, Boqvist achieved a career-high in goals, points, and ice time (17:03). Over those three seasons, he’s played 128 games split between Chicago and Columbus and has 17 goals, 34 assists, and 51 points.
Overall, it’s been a solid start to Boqvist’s career, who Chicago selected eighth overall in the 2018 NHL Entry Draft. Columbus acquired Boqvist, along with a 2021 first-round pick (used on Cole Sillinger), a 2022 first-round pick (sixth overall), and a 2021 second-round pick (flipped to the Carolina Hurricanes in exchange for Jake Bean) in the massive Seth Jones trade prior to last year’s draft.
The 21-year-old Boqvist still needs to work on improving his defensive game at the NHL level, but he’s shown solid transitional play and offensive zone awareness thus far, earning him the extension. In all likelihood, he’ll be slotting into a top-four role in Columbus next season.
Excellent. Thanks, Blackhawks!
The Black Hawks rebuild is going to be so much more painful than it otherwise would have had to be just because they didn’t fire Bowman in time before that trade. Boqvist, Bean, Sillinger, and another first rounder was an amazing haul for a declining asset.
On top of it Jones is now overpaid and untradeable, with term that stretches all the way through what should be the rebuild years.
Stan Bowman made a ton of bad trades, and there’s a real chance this was the absolute worst. Astounding that he’d still be employed today but for a certain incident.
Bowman being considered a “successful” GM shows just how many GMs in hockey suck.
Stan Bowman did one good thing his entire career with Chicago. He signed Artemi Panarin. That’s It. It’s a shame he has Stanley Cup rings and the man that built those teams, Dale Tallon dosen’t.
There are many many many good reasons to say bad things about Stan Bowman.
But trading us Trevor Daley for Rob Scuderi was a true act of altruism and generosity.
Boqvist gets 2.6 per yet some leaf fans think Sandin is getting a 4M offer sheet.