The Jackets got a little house-cleaning done before the draft re-signing William Karlsson to a two-year $2M deal.
#CBJ have signed William Karlsson to a two-year, $2 million deal. $1M each of next two seasons. Would have been RFA on July 1.
— Aaron Portzline (@Aportzline) June 23, 2016
Karlsson had a good season playing 81 games, scoring nine goals and 11 assists. He was relied upon heavily by John Tortorella taking on tough matchups and played a big role on the penalty kill.
As you can see in his HERO Chart below Karlsson did very well in that role:
He didn’t generate much offense but he did quite well suppressing shots. He is a great bottom six player who is strong defensively and can chip in offense occasionally.
This is the perfect deal for this type of player: short term and not much money. It’s a great deal for the Jackets who don’t have much cap space and really you shouldn’t be paying depth players like this big money anyway.
With that deal taken care of the Jackets now only have to sign Seth Jones. Getting Jones locked up needs to be this team number one priority once the draft is done.
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