Bouwmeester turns down ridiculous extension
Jay Bouwmeester would appreciated it if you traded him immediately
These days, you can’t pay people to stay in Miami.
In a move that has HFBoards posters falling all over themselves to put together terrible trade proposals, highly sought-after defenseman Jay Bouwmeester apparently turned down Florida’s latest overture, a multi-year deal worth over $5 million per.
People wonder why Florida never competes. Here’s a defenseman who would get offers north of $7 million from just about any team in the National Hockey League who’s just 24 years old. He scored 15 goals last year and was only a -5 on an awful Panthers team despite playing a whopping 27:28 a night in all situations. So Florida, despite having all the cap room in the world, lowballs him. Badly. A deal in the mid-5s would have him paid less on average than Bryan McCabe, Andrei Markov, Mathieu Schneider, and Roman Hamrlik. ROMAN HAMRLIK.
J-Bo is obviously waiting for the day he gets his arbitration hearing (and he’ll get pretty close to that $5 million if they screw him there) and can beat a hasty retreat the hell out of Florida. Who can blame him? NHL GMs will be lined up around the block to get this kid on the free agent market, and most will be calling the Florida front office with trade ideas about three seconds after his arbitration hearing lets out.
