In Winnipeg this week, Blake Wheeler and the Jets settled any anxiety fans may have had in signing a five-year deal worth a reported $8.25 million per year.
Wheeler was scheduled to be an unrestricted free agent after this season.
“Where I’m at in my career, with my age, I feel like my best years are ahead of me,” Wheeler said. “I wanted to give those years to his organization and hopefully push this team to the championship levels. That’s what you’re buying into and, certainly, we have a ton of work to do to get to that point.
“I think both sides, it was something that we wanted to do. There were a lot of guys that needed to get taken care of this summer. Whether it was now or whether it was later, I think it was something both sides wanted to accomplish. Obviously, I’m really happy that it got done now.”
The Jets have a little north of $10 million in cap space available according to capfriendly.com.
This past season Wheeler netted 23 goals with 91 points to lead the team in scoring.
“He’s a driver of our team and he’s grown into that,” Jets general manager Kevin Cheveldayoff said. “Blake is an interesting individual in a sense that he wasn’t one of those guys who started playing at 18 or 19 in the League. I think the mileage on the odometer is a little different than the age on the clock.”
Wheeler is entering the third as captain of the Jets.
“They key is to try to keep this group, with what our team and the system and the successes we had last year, it kind of looks like that (Stanley Cup) window is opening up,” Wheeler said. “And you want to try to keep it together as long as possible. That’s where [Cheveldayoff] has a great luxury in having that problem, but it’s also probably really difficult to try and manipulate. Those guys do a ton of work behind the scenes to try to keep this group together as long as possible.”
Winnipeg went to the Western Conference Final last season and were eliminated by the Vegas Golden Knights in five games.
The Jets are working to keep the core group together in Winnipeg and signed restricted free agents Adam Lowry, Brandon Tanev and Marko Dano, Jacob Trouba, Tucker Poolman, and Connor Hellebuyck over the summer.
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