Forward Boone Jenner is staying with the Columbus Blue Jackets, signing a four-year, $15 million contract extension with an AAV of $3.75 million.
#CBJ make it official: Boone Jenner has signed a four-year, $15 million contract extension through the 2025-26 season.
The longest-tenured Blue Jackets player is sticking around.
— Aaron Portzline (@Aportzline) July 28, 2021
Boone Jenner Staying with Columbus Blue Jackets
It’ll be another four years for the longest-tenured Blue Jackets player on the roster. Columbus picked the power forward 37th overall in the second round of the 2011 draft. That was after an OHL career in which he scored 246 points in 227 games with the Oshawa Generals.
Jenner made the Blue Jackets out of training camp in 2013-14 where he played in 72 games, recording 16 goals and 13 assists. Injuries plagued the forward the following season as he played just 31 games in 2014-15. He bounced back the following season with a career year, scoring 30 goals and 19 assists, playing in every regular-season game. That was the peak for the Blue Jackets alternate captain, with Jenner failing to crack the 40 point mark at any other time in his career.
What this means for Columbus
As he normally does, Blue Jackets general manager Jarmo Kekalainen has had a busy offseason so far. He has already made arguably the biggest trade in shipping defenceman Seth Jones to the Chicago Blackhawks in exchange for Adam Boqvist. Cam Atkinson was also swapped for Jakub Voracek. Patrik Laine was inked to a one-year deal to keep his talents in Columbus for at least another year. And Kekalainen also reeled in Sean Kuraly from free agency on a four-year deal.
It would be tough to argue that this would be it for the Blue Jackets. They still have nearly $16 million in cap space, plus no money on long-term injured reserve. In a season with a flat cap, those LTIR spots become increasingly valuable across the league. There are still two more restricted free agents to figure out in Alex Texier and newly acquired Jake Bean.
Aside from that though, the Columbus roster is more or less filled. Max Domi, Voracek, Laine, Jack Roslovic, Oliver Bjorkstrand and Gustav Nyquist will round out the top six with either Jenner or Kuraly. In net, Joonas Korpisalo and Elvis Merzlikins will likely share time. Expect the Jackets to go after one more veteran defenceman to balance out a young back end with the likes of Zach Werenski, Vladislav Gavrikov and Boqvist.
Keeping Jenner will provide veteran leadership as the longest-serving member of the team. It wouldn’t be surprising if Jenner found himself with a ‘C’ on his jersey come next season.
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