One can only imagine Ryan Johansen lying in his hotel bed, slowly awakening from a pregame nap in Toronto, grabbing his phone off the end table and seeing the news of Sergei Bobrovsky's four-year, $29.7 million contract extension and having one immediate thought...
..."I thought we were a team on a budget."
It was only a few months ago when the Columbus Blue Jackets played hardball with Johansen, their budding star coming off an entry-level deal. The negotiations became public and contentious as one side wanted a bridge deal (aka bad deal) and the other side wanted a long-term deal (aka too much money for an RFA). The two sides eventually pulled a Benjamin Button by meeting in the middle with a three-year, $12 million agreement.
Since then, the Blue Jackets have backed dump trucks full of money onto the lawns of Bobrovsky and Nick Foligno, the latter receiving a six-year, $33 million contract two weeks ago while in the middle of a career season.
The Blue Jackets are a team on a small-market budget—their payrolls have ranked 19th, 14th, 24th, 13th and 23rd the past five seasons, via the CapGeek archives&md ...
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Article written by Dave Lozo
Why the Columbus Blue Jackets Paid a Little Too Much for Sergei Bobrovsky
January 9th, 2015 by Dave Lozo Leave a reply »
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