Uncertainly continues to hang over two Winnipeg Jets who are among the faces of the franchise, Andrew Ladd and Dustin Byfuglien.
Both players are in the final years of their contracts, and while you’d predict more likely than not something gets done with Ladd, it’s Byfuglien who poses the real question.
The guys over at Illegal Curve have done a tremendous job breaking down what a potential extension for Byfuglien would look like. I encourage you to read the entire thing, but their final breakdown looks something in the ballpark of six years with an average annual value of $7 million. If that’s the cost, hopefully it will be another team forking that money over to Byfuglien on July 1, 2016 instead of the Winnipeg Jets.
I’m as big of a fan as Byfuglien as a lot of Jets fans. He brings a skill set to the table that very few guys in the league (if any) can bring. Sure, it has its drawbacks at times, but he’s a dynamic player that would make many teams better.
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But Byfuglien is 30 years old. It’s no secret he’s a hulk of a human and you have to wonder if his body would be able to withstand the physical nature of the way he plays right through the age of 37, where a six year deal would take him.
The Jets, should they deal Byfuglien, would be dealing from a position of strength, which Winnipeg Sun editor Ted Wyman points out in an article earlier this week advocating dealing someone *ahem* Byfuglien from that core. Meanwhile, a poll attached to the story has the ‘Trade Him Now’ option at 51 per cent – at least that’s what it was at after I voted for that choice.
It’s tough seeing anything else making more sense. If you throw out resigning him (which doesn’t have much traction right now and besides, it doesn’t seem appealing), the other options could be trading him now, later, or keeping him as a ‘rental’.
Keeping him around for the season before letting him hit free agency would be probably the worse decision of all. While losing Byfuglien would weaken the team, the Jets shouldn’t be foolish. They look like a lower-seed, even borderline playoff team with him in the lineup and keeping him around to help them make some sort of playoff push would be terrible asset management. The Jets have a great system and any trade could help them continue to build towards their probable contenting years.
Dustin Byfuglien has one year remaining on his contract with the Winnipeg Jets. Credit: Bruce Fedyck-USA TODAY Sports
Taking the wait-and-see approach would also be less than ideal. Giving a team a full season of Buff now as opposed to a half season or less as we approach the trade deadline you would think lead to a better return for the Jets. Plus, it’s already August, Buff isn’t even in Winnipeg yet, and his contract situation is hot topic number one around the team – something I can’t imagine will cool down until it is resolved.
But what happens if the Jets are say, holding down a wild card position come February? What message does a trade send to your team at that point? But if you hold onto Byfuglien at that point in time, then you come around to the same problem we encountered two paragraphs above.
There isn’t really a simple solution for general manager Kevin Cheveldayoff, which is kind of funny given Byfuglien isn’t a simple player to figure out. Whatever the decision may be, it would be nice to see a conclusion to this come sooner than later.