{"id":97129,"date":"2021-01-06T11:13:31","date_gmt":"2021-01-06T16:13:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/?p=97129"},"modified":"2021-01-06T11:13:31","modified_gmt":"2021-01-06T16:13:31","slug":"columbus-blue-jackets-extend-oliver-bjorkstrand","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/2021\/01\/06\/columbus-blue-jackets-extend-oliver-bjorkstrand\/","title":{"rendered":"Columbus Blue Jackets Extend Oliver Bjorkstrand"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/category\/bluejackets\/\" target=\"_self\">Columbus Blue Jackets<\/a> have extended key forward <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.hockey-reference.com\/players\/b\/bjorkol01.html?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Oliver Bjorkstrand<\/a><\/strong>. The new contract will carry an annual cap hit of $5.4 million. This comes as teams are opening their training camps to prepare for the abbreviated 2020-21 season. David Pagnotta broke the news Wednesday morning.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">The Columbus Blue Jackets have signed F Oliver Bjorkstrand to a 5-year, $27M contract extension ($5.4M AAV)<\/p>\n<p>&mdash; David Pagnotta (@TheFourthPeriod) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/TheFourthPeriod\/status\/1346842010062381059?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">January 6, 2021<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<h2>Blue Jackets Re-sign Oliver Bjorkstrand<\/h2>\n<p>The Danish Bjorkstrand had a fine season for the Blue Jackets last year. He posted 21 goals and 36 points in 49 games at 24-years-old. His average ice time spiked to 17:56 per game, but a midseason injury in late December cut into what looked like a breakout campaign. Columbus has a great asset on its hands if he can repeat 0.73 points per game and a 54.5 Corsi For. The season is only 56 games, but a full year with 2019-20 rates should produce a new career-high for the 25-year-old.<\/p>\n<p>The Blue Jackets originally drafted Bjorkstrand in the third round of the 2013 Draft. He debuted in 2015-16 for 12 games. His first significant action came later in 2017-18 when he played in all 82 games with 11 goals and 40 points. That was despite an average ice time of just 14:18. He&#8217;s always had good possession numbers; his Corsi For has never dipped below 51.4 percent in five seasons, but it looks like he might have found a new gear if healthy.<\/p>\n<h3>What This Means for the Future<\/h3>\n<p>This extension wasn&#8217;t necessary as Bjorkstrand had been under contract until next year, but Columbus got it out of the way early. He will be with the team through 2025-26. That is fantastic control for a player who could seize dominance of the offence as soon as this year.<\/p>\n<p>Columbus will now pivot and determine which pending free agents are critical going into 2021-22. That could include veterans like <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hockey-reference.com\/players\/k\/koivumi01.html?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Mikko Koivu<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hockey-reference.com\/players\/s\/savarda01.html?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">David Savard<\/a>. Restricted free agency is also approaching for youngsters Alex Texier and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hockey-reference.com\/players\/p\/peekean01.html?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Andrew Peeke<\/a>, both of whom could be factors this season. The Blue Jackets are likely far from done when it comes to long-term roster management.<\/p>\n<p>Main Photo:<\/p>\n<p><a id=\"NxX8r8cqSSJvASjG7kZ5yA\" class=\"gie-single\" style=\"color: #a7a7a7; text-decoration: none; font-weight: normal !important; border: none; display: inline-block;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.gettyimages.com\/detail\/1266837938\" 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:'NxX8r8cqSSJvASjG7kZ5yA',sig:'CmYENJKl5c5rHFZg7OcndiIw_jZjO8GoR4tjT6oxqDM=',w:'594px',h:'396px',items:'1266837938',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 key forward Oliver Bjorkstrand. The new contract will carry an annual cap hit of $5.4 million. This comes as teams are opening their training camps to prepare for the abbreviated 2020-21 season. David Pagnotta broke the news Wednesday morning. The Columbus Blue Jackets have signed F Oliver Bjorkstrand to [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3127,"featured_media":97144,"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":[111,37,5738,38,955,290,5849],"class_list":["post-97129","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-bluejackets","category-hockey","category-news","category-nhl","tag-columbus-blue-jackets","tag-hockey","tag-hockey-news","tag-nhl","tag-nhl-news","tag-oliver-bjorkstrand","tag-oliver-bjorkstrand-extension"],"modified_by":"William Grigsby","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/97129","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=97129"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/97129\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/97144"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=97129"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=97129"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=97129"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}