{"id":471498,"date":"2025-06-30T09:37:21","date_gmt":"2025-06-30T13:37:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/?p=471498"},"modified":"2025-06-30T09:37:21","modified_gmt":"2025-06-30T13:37:21","slug":"boston-bruins-identify-depth-defender-as-asset-and-sign-him-to-extension","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/2025\/06\/30\/boston-bruins-identify-depth-defender-as-asset-and-sign-him-to-extension\/","title":{"rendered":"Boston Bruins Identify Depth Defender As Asset and Sign Him to Extension"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Today the <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/2025\/06\/29\/blossoming-goal-scoring-forward-signs-nice-new-deal\/\" target=\"_self\">Boston Bruins<\/a> have decided to bring back a recent, regular contributor to the backend. Defenceman Henri Jokiharju signs a contract extension to stay on in Beantown. The deal is for three years and carries an average annual value of $3 million. Boston has experienced a great deal of roster turnover over the past couple of seasons. Therefore, identifying a player like Jokiharju as someone they want to keep around is a big deal.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Henri Jokiharju signs a three-year extension with the <a  href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/bruins?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">#bruins<\/a> carrying a $3M AAV.<\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Chris Johnston (@reporterchris) <a  href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/reporterchris\/status\/1939671079364030500?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">June 30, 2025<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h3>Defenceman Henri Jokiharju Signs a Three-Year Contract Extension to Stay in Boston<\/h3>\n<p>Jokiharju was originally drafted by the Chicago Blackhawks. The Finnish product was a first rounder, 29th overall, back in the 2017 NHL Entry Draft. When he came over to Boston this past season, it marked the third <a  href=\"https:\/\/www.sportsnet.ca\/podcasts\/32-thoughts\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">NHL <\/a>franchise he had suited up for.<\/p>\n<h3>Looking at Jokiharju&#8217;s Statistics<\/h3>\n<p>Throughout his career, mainly in Buffalo, he has played important roles at times. For two full seasons in Buffalo, he was above 21 minutes a game. Therefore, he can be relied on to play a variety of situations. This past year, split between Buffalo and Boston, he totaled 60 games. He had three goals and seven assists, for a total of ten points. Furthermore, he ended up averaging 17:50 of ice time, combined for the two teams. He is someone who tends to play better than his opposition, analytically. His 2024-25 Corsi-for-percent-relative of 2.3 over even-strength situations, proves that point. Now, as Henri Jokiharju signs, he can be an asset for the matchup game, and Boston has identified that quality.<\/p>\n<p>Boston needs to identify players they want to have around as they go through a vast retooling process. Jokiharju plays hard and can be relied upon in these situations. General manager Don Sweeney likes players like Jokiharju, as they play a good, Bruins game. Stay tuned, as given the recent history, Sweeney could have plenty more in store.<\/p>\n<p>Main Photo Credit: Gary A. Vasquez-Imagn Images<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Today the Boston Bruins have decided to bring back a recent, regular contributor to the backend. Defenceman Henri Jokiharju signs a contract extension to stay on in Beantown. The deal is for three years and carries an average annual value of $3 million. Boston has experienced a great deal of roster turnover over the past [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4222,"featured_media":471502,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[5,4547,34,4548],"tags":[6120,1613,662],"class_list":["post-471498","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-bruins","category-hockey","category-news","category-nhl","tag-boston-bruins-news","tag-henri-jokiharju","tag-nhl-free-agency"],"modified_by":"Levi Pike, Editor","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/471498","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4222"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=471498"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/471498\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":471503,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/471498\/revisions\/471503"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/471502"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=471498"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=471498"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=471498"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}