Blue Jackets Lock Up Seth Jones

The fear of offer sheets got the best of the Columbus Blue Jackets or so we're supposed to think.  With Seth Jones, potentially their best defenseman here shortly, they needed to get a deal done before the floor opened up to restricted free agency and the vultures (or other NHL teams) couldn't put the pressure on.

The Jackets were already dealing with some salary cap concerns, heading into the Summer, but they knew that Jones was a top priority for their club, not too long after acquiring him from the Nashville Predators in the deal that sent Ryan Johansen the other way.

On Wednesday morning, the club announced that they had signed Jones to a 6-year contract extension, reportedly worth $32.4 million in total, a $5.4 million cap hit per season.  By my count, which you can see in the table below, the projected roster is already up to 20 players and they only have about $1.675 million left under the ceiling.

For us poolies, Jones, just finishing his third season in the NHL, is certainly starting to come around offensively, ranking 49th among all defensemen in scoring with 3 goals and 31 points in 81 games between Nashville and Columbus.  The move has allowed him a lot more responsibility with his new club, which can only mean good things for both the player and the team, not to mention the hockey pool team that selects him next season.  I think his projections for next season will improve impressively.

Don't forget, the World Cup of Hockey pool, which we'll have before the NHL season gets started, an announcement coming tomorrow... he'll be a part of the North American Under-23 team and should feature as a big part of that team in September.

Forwards	Cap	Defense	Cap	Goalies	Cap
Brandon Saad	6.000	Seth Jones	5.400	Sergei Bobrovsky	7.425
Brandon Dubinsky	5.850	David Savard	4.250	Joonas Korpisalo	0.743
Nick Foligno	5.500	Ryan Murray	2.825
Scott Hartnell	4.750
Cam Atkinson	3.500
Boone Jenner	2.900
Alexander Wennberg	0.925
David Clarkson	5.250	Fedor Tyutin	4.500
Matt Calvert	2.200	Jack Johnson	4.357
Jared Boll	1.700	Cody Goloubef	0.750
Gregory Campbell	1.500
William Karlsson	1.000
Sonny Milano	0.863	Gabriel Carlsson	0.925	Curtis McElhinney	0.800
Jordan Maletta	0.793	Zach Werenski	0.925	Oscar Dansk	0.776
Paul Bittner	0.778	Markus Nutivaara	0.818	Anton Forsberg	0.650
Justin Scott	0.751	Dillon Heatherington	0.771
Brett Gallant	0.750	Dean Kukan	0.768
Kole Sherwood	0.722	Blake Siebenaler	0.678
Markus Hannikainen	0.718	Jamie Sifers	0.625
Josh Anderson	0.709	John Ramage	0.613
Nick Moutrey	0.693	Oleg Yevenko	0.575
Keegan Kolesar	0.692
Oliver Bjorkstrand	0.678
Daniel Zaar	0.665
Lukas Sedlak	0.600

Pool worthy, non-pool roster players, injured/retired cap hits, in the system