The Jets have taken one of their pending unrestricted free agents off the market for this summer. They announced that they have signed forward Vladislav Namestnikov to a two-year contract extension worth $3MM per season beginning in 2025-26.
The 32-year-old showed some promise offensively early in his career with a 48-point season in 2017-18. However, he hasn’t been able to reach those numbers since then, resulting in him becoming a bit of a hockey nomad, spending time with eight different teams between that season and the 2022-23 campaign. The Jets were the last team out of that group as they acquired him as a rental at the 2023 trade deadline and liked what they saw, giving him a two-year, $4MM contract on the opening day of free agency that summer.
The contract has worked out well for both sides. While Namestnikov still hasn’t gotten back to his top offensive numbers, he has become a reliable secondary scorer for Winnipeg. Last season in his first full year with the Jets, he picked up 11 goals and 26 assists in 78 games, good for the second-highest point total of his career. Notably, he also spent considerable time at center after spending most of the previous few seasons on the wing.
Namestnikov is on pace for a higher offensive output this year. Through 52 outings this season, he has 10 goals and 19 assists while logging just under 15 minutes a night of playing time. He has been a regular at center this year and has improved his faceoff percentage by 9.5% compared to a year ago although it still checks in as below-average at 45.8% on the campaign. Nonetheless, becoming a reliable middle-six player who can play down the middle certainly helped Namestnikov’s cause in contract talks, allowing him to get a 50% raise on this new agreement to keep him in the fold.
With the deal, Winnipeg now has roughly $55.6MM in commitments on the books to 14 players for next season, per PuckPedia, giving them a little under $40MM in space to work with. They do, however, still have a pair of notable pending UFAs to deal with, including winger Nikolaj Ehlers and defenseman Neal Pionk, both of whom are in line for pricey long-term contracts this summer. In the meantime, they’ve helped shore up their forward depth for the next two years by keeping Namestnikov around.
Namestnikov’s agent Dan Milstein first reported the deal while Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman was first with the financial terms.
Photo courtesy of Imagn Images.
The Jets need to resign Iafallo. I really do not want to lose him. I have pretty much accepted that Ehlers is gone after this year.