It’s that time of the year when we say goodbye to some of our old friends and welcome our new ones, free agency frenzy.
The start of free agency was a bit rough for the Columbus Blue Jackets organization. They started off losing the “Big 3” to other teams.
John Davidson and the New York Rangers swayed Artemi Panarin to come play with them for seven years.
Matt Duchene followed his country loving heart and signed with the Nashville Predators for seven years.
As expected, Sergei Bobrovsky took his talents to South Beach and signed with the Florida Panthers.
On the bright side, they didn’t all end up on the same team.
The Jackets also signed one new player and brought back two on the first day of free agency.
Joonas Korpisalo signed a one year contract extension with the org. It appears he and Elvis Merzlikens will be battling it out for the number one spot on the team during the 2019-20 season.
The defense got a little bit of a boost with the re-signing of Ryan Murray.
Fans were caught a little off guard when the Jackets announced the signing of forward Gustav Nyquist for four years. He will be a welcome addition to the team.
At the end of the day, GM Jarmo Kekalainen held a press conference to discuss the happenings of the day. He answered some hard hitting questions with complete honesty.
Like Kekalainen, we hosted our own press conference to discuss what went down on the first day of free agency. Ok, ok, it was actually a podcast we taped BUT it’s pretty good and you should check it out here.
Cleveland Monsters
The Jackets may not have thought Sam Vigneault had a place in the organization but the Cleveland Monsters decided he was worth a contract. The Monsters brought him back for one year.
Meet back here next week when we bring back the “Sports News Around Ohio” section. We’ll have a bunch of MLB All-Star weekend links in there for you.