Johnny Gaudreau shocks the hockey world with his decision, signs a 7-year deal with a complete dark horse team
In the biggest shocker of day 1 of free agency, UFA forward and former Calgary Flames winger Johnny Gaudreau has selected the Columbus Blue Jackets as his home team for the next 7 seasons.
Folks, I'm not going to lie to you.. I had to do a double-take to ensure that it was actually Elliotte Friedman's verified account posting this and not some fake twitter account who gets off on impersonating insiders and breaking fake deals. But I can assure you, this is the actual report from Friedman.
Gaudreau inked a 7-year deal that Friedman believes will fall in the $9.8M per season range.
Gaudreau had a much larger offer on the table from the Calgary Flames, who offered Johnny Hockey an 8-year deal worth more than $10M per season. In addition, the New Jersey Devils and New York Islanders were also believed to be in on Gaudreau.
Coming off of a 115-point season, Gaudreau had his pick of the litter and could have signed with any number of teams, but the choice to go to Columbus is one that absolutely nobody saw coming - even after rumours of a 7-year deal being offered with a $12M AAV had begun to circulate on Twitter.
The Blue Jackets have a good young team with a lot of promising pieces in place, so perhaps Gaudreau believes he'll have a legitimate chance to win there within the next few years. Between Kent Johnson, Cole Sillinger, Yegor Chinakhov, David Jiricek, Denton Mateychuk and a number of other youngsters who will form what should be a dangerous core for the Jackets for years to come, it's not a bad decision for Gaudreau - just a surprising one. I think it's fair to suggest that most people had assumed that the Salem, NJ native might be headed home to New Jersey.
Nice grab by Columbus. Wow.
