The Winnipeg Jets have signed defenseman Zach Bogosian to a seven-year, $36-million contract.
Bogosian was the Jets’ final restricted free agent who needed a new deal. The deal gives Bogosian — who had an arbitration hearing set for Friday — a salary-cap hit of $5.14 million per season and includes a no-trade clause.
It also represents the longest contract the Jets have handed out since the franchise moved here from Atlanta, surpassing the six-year pacts given to Evander Kane and Blake Wheeler.
“I made it clear since obviously my first time being in Winnipeg it was obviously a place that I wanted to be for a long time,” Bogosian said on a conference call Monday. “It was definitely a no-brainer for me to want to stay there for a long time.”
The 23-year-old has 34 goals and 69 assists in 297 games, all with the same franchise, beginning with its days as the Atlanta Thrashers.
(WINNIPEG SUN FILES)
“I’m just real happy that Winnipeg believed in me and kind of gave me another chance to kind of prove myself, he said. “I didn’t exactly have the best start of my career in Atlanta, and obviously moving up to Winnipeg gave me a new chance to play in a hockey market and play in a hockey town that really I enjoyed playing in front of.”
“I was pretty confident it was going to get done,” he said. “Obviously I don’t know that much about arbitration. I’ve heard it’s not the greatest thing to go to. I was just happy to get it done. It was very, I guess, humbling to know that Winnipeg wanted me to stay there for a long time as much as I did. It was mutual that both sides wanted to do a long-term deal from the get-go.”
Bogosian was invited to U.S. Olympic orientation camp that will take place next month.
Alvin Cho
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