{"id":73730,"date":"2020-04-23T16:10:17","date_gmt":"2020-04-23T20:10:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonhockey.com\/?p=73730"},"modified":"2020-04-23T16:32:06","modified_gmt":"2020-04-23T20:32:06","slug":"columbus-blue-jackets-extend-elvis-merzlikins","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/2020\/04\/23\/columbus-blue-jackets-extend-elvis-merzlikins\/","title":{"rendered":"Columbus Blue Jackets Extend Elvis Merzlikins"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The Columbus Blue Jackets have extended goaltender <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.hockey-reference.com\/players\/m\/merzlel01.html?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Elvis Merzlikins<\/a><\/strong> to a two-year contract extension. The deal will take the 26-year-old through 2021-22 and cost $4 million for the next two seasons. The Blue Jackets announced the signing Thursday afternoon.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">\ud83d\udcdd The Blue Jackets have signed goalie Elvis Merzlikins to a two-year contract extension.<a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/CBJ?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">#CBJ<\/a> | @Merzly30<a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/EbRwvQzUjO\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">https:\/\/t.co\/EbRwvQzUjO<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Columbus Blue Jackets (@BlueJacketsNHL) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/BlueJacketsNHL\/status\/1253413462039859201?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">April 23, 2020<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<h2>Blue Jackets Extend Elvis Merzlikins<\/h2>\n<p>The young Latvian goalie was a revelation for Columbus in 2019-20. He started the season as the backup for <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.hockey-reference.com\/players\/k\/korpijo01.html?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Joonas Korpisalo<\/a><\/strong> but took over midway through the season was Korpisalo was injured. Merzlikins had one of the best months in January where he won eight games out of 10 with a .948 save percentage and 1.72 goals-against-average. He has been a good goaltender overall as well. His numbers this season include 13 wins, a .923 save percentage and a 2.35 goals-against-average.<\/p>\n<h3>What This Means for the Future<\/h3>\n<p>This factors in as an extremely important signing for the CBJ and general manager\u00a0<strong>Jarmo Kekalainen<\/strong>. This extension helps give them some sort of cost certainty in net as the Blue Jackets try to contend for a Stanley Cup. Merzlikins is now locked in at $4 million a year along with Korpisalo at $2.8 million for the next two seasons. So, Columbus ends up paying a $6.8 million flat rate for the next two years for one of the more impressive goalie tandems in the league.<\/p>\n<p>Not bad at all.<\/p>\n<p>There are some other implications here, too. Columbus&#8217; willingness to shell out this much money for Elvis is certainly a vote of confidence. While Korpisalo was viewed as Columbus&#8217; goalie of the future for a long time, Merzlikins&#8217; impressive performance this year has changed that. There&#8217;s a real debate here between two hot young goalies &#8211; and purely by a financial factor, Merzlikins seems to have gained the majority of confidence in Columbus.<\/p>\n<p>But still, $4 million is a lot for a young, inexperienced goalie. Merzlikins will have next season to demonstrate whether he&#8217;s worthy. If he is, this extension may look like a steal.<\/p>\n<p>Main Photo:<br \/>\n<a id=\"AbWOkv7gTSxb8WQMDXkrPA\" class=\"gie-single\" style=\"color: #a7a7a7; text-decoration: none; font-weight: normal !important; border: none; display: inline-block;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.gettyimages.com\/detail\/1208604235\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Embed from Getty Images<\/a><script>window.gie=window.gie||function(c){(gie.q=gie.q||[]).push(c)};gie(function(){gie.widgets.load({id:'AbWOkv7gTSxb8WQMDXkrPA',sig:'Rl33vji0_Bi8BJEg8cXy_w45P9eydKc7_uF79pBSEl8=',w:'594px',h:'396px',items:'1208604235',caption: true ,tld:'com',is360: false })});<\/script><script src='\/\/embed-cdn.gettyimages.com\/widgets.js' charset='utf-8' async><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Columbus Blue Jackets have extended goaltender Elvis Merzlikins to a two-year contract extension. The deal will take the 26-year-old through 2021-22 and cost $4 million for the next two seasons. The Blue Jackets announced the signing Thursday afternoon. \ud83d\udcdd The Blue Jackets have signed goalie Elvis Merzlikins to a two-year contract extension.#CBJ | @Merzly30https:\/\/t.co\/EbRwvQzUjO [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3127,"featured_media":73737,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_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":[11,4547,34,4548],"tags":[111,606,1434,37,38],"class_list":["post-73730","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-bluejackets","category-hockey","category-news","category-nhl","tag-columbus-blue-jackets","tag-eastern-conference","tag-elvis-merzlikins","tag-hockey","tag-nhl"],"modified_by":"Josh Erickson","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73730","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\/3127"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=73730"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73730\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/73737"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=73730"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=73730"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=73730"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}