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Boedker's New Deal A Steal |
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Mikkel Boedker has finally re-signed after a lot of speculation that he wanted a long term deal after having taken a two year deal that held a cap hit of 1.1mil per season as his bridge deal. His new deal is also a two year deal though his cap hit now is a modest 2.55mil per season. I honestly expected him to get a larger deal after seeing all the various insane contracts both in length and amount being given out, plus the problems with all the “holdouts” by RFA’s around the league (most notably Franson, Kadri, Hodgson and Pietrangelo).
The great part about this deal aside from the relatively small cap hit, is the fact that this deal will take the 23 year old winger to another RFA negotiation as he will have one more year remaining before he becomes eligible for Unrestricted Free Agency.
Despite having his best season offensively and taking the role of the top line left winger, Boedker’s production still has a ways to go before he can really be counted on to be a legitimate top-6 winger in the league. His play cooled near the end of the year like many players in this shortened season and while he ended up with 26 points which was 4 off from leading the team, he scored 18 points in the first 26 games…but only 8 in the final 22, something that is a glaring issue when the playoff hunt was extremely desperate. This was his first real taste as a top-6 player under Dave Tippett’s firm grip. Boedker like Turris and Mueller before him was rushed straight out of junior far before they were ready and while Mueller and Turris demanded trades for the treatment they received over the demands for more defensive awareness to gain minutes, Boedker has developed into a very strong two-way player embracing a much more physical brand of hockey than was ever expected from him.
Here’s a bit of stats from last season in comparison with the rest of the team.
4th in Points with 26.
3rd in PP Goals with 3 (of his 7 total)
5th in Hits with 77.
1st in Takeaways with 27.
Played on the second PK unit behind the Gordon/Korpikoski tandem.
All in all he had a pretty good year and at only 23 should improve his offensive totals and maybe even see more PK time. This upcoming season will be a real proving point for Boedker as he has already been slated to play with newcomer Mike Ribeiro as well as Shane Doan again on his other wing. Ribeiro will be the most talented player he has ever been centred by in the NHL thus far and somebody who should help the entire team on the PP which is still fairly pedestrian.
So with two years at 2.55mil what is expected out of Boedker knowing that he will almost certainly be playing on the top line? Well with such a low number I can only guess that management is expecting around the 15g 40-50p mark, which at that price would be extremely good value.
My personal expectations are somewhat higher. I know this is a low scoring team in general, but I feel that with his speed and excellent shot he could do a lot better. I mean this is a guy who has an amazing wrist shot…but decides to pass off opportunities and try his best to force feed Doan the puck at times. With Ribeiro who is a top notch passer, he might finally become the triggerman we all hope he can be.
My expectations are 20 goals and 54 points.
Realistic?
Thanks for reading. The prospect blogs are coming, I wrote a bunch in…well a bunch.
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