Zach Bogosian gets his wish to stay with the Winnipeg Jets.
The 23-year-old defenseman agreed to a seven-year, $36.1 million contract with the Jets on Monday, fulfilling a desire to remain with the team. The deal gives him a salary cap hit of $5.14 million per season as well as a no-trade clause, per the Winnipeg Sun's Ken Wiebe.
Wiebe also points out Bogosian's contract is the longest the Jets have ever handed out since the former Atlanta Thrashers moved to Winnipeg. This surpasses the six-year deal of Evander Kane and Blake Wheeler.
The Jets' defenseman was the last of five remaining free agents on their roster to file for salary arbitration in order to work out a deal, per CBC Sports.
Bogosian reiterated his desire to remain in Winnipeg and his confidence that the deal will eventually be ironed out.
"It's not my job to listen to people that say I'm overpaid or underpaid or whatever. It's just my job to go out there and do the right things and help the team win. I made it clear since obviously my first time being in Winnipeg it was obviously a place that I wanted to be for a long time.
"I was pretty confident it was going to get done. Obviously, I don't know that much about arbitration. I've heard it's not the greatest thing to go to. I was just happy to get it done. It was very humbling to know that Winnipeg wanted me to stay there for a long time as much as I did. It was mutual that both sides wanted to do a long-term deal from the get-go."
Corey Masisak of NHL.com notes the Jets have their top four forwards (Wheeler, Kane, Bryan Litle and Andrew Ladd), four defensemen (Bogosian, Tobias Enstrom, Dustin Byfuglien and Paul Postma) and goaltender Ondrej Pavelec signed to contracts for at least three seasons. The Winnipeg core should remain intact during that stretch.
Once Bogosian was signed, the Jets were around $2.3 million under the salary cap. The New York Rangers now have more cap space than Winnipeg.
Bogosian had five goals and 14 points in 33 games during the lockout-shortened 2012-13 NHL season.
