Very little interest for Johnny Gaudreau on free-agent market

The race for Johnny Gaudreau ended on the first day of NHL free agency in a way no one saw coming. He signed a seven-year, $68.25 million deal with the Columbus Blue Jackets. Their offer came as Gaudreau had almost made his mind up that he would play for the New Jersey Devils.

On the “Spittin’ Chiclets” podcast on Tuesday, Gaudreau not only revealed how the last-minute deal came to, but also that he received very few offers as one of the most coveted free agent forwards available on the market.

”To be honest with you, I don’t think I’d ever want to do this again. It was a really stressful day. I thought it was gonna be like ‘Cool, free agency, this team is going to want me, that team is gonna want me, I’m gonna get a call from these guys, and that guy,’ and it was nothing like that at all. I was like, ‘What’s going on here?’ I don’t know if it was the flat cap or it was harder on teams, but I was only talking to like two or three teams…”

Gaudreau was thankful the Blue Jackets called in with an offer because he had mentioned to his agent this was a team he was very interested in joining as a free agent.

“ I’m super thankful that Columbus called during that late hour in the afternoon because I was trying to get a deal done with the Devils and then Columbus called and I was like, ‘Ah, I wanna go here,’ and then my agent got it done and it was awesome.”

There was a sense that Gaudreau was going to sign closer to home, but he soon realized a deal with the Devils might be too close to his liking.

“For me, I always said I wanted to play closer to home, but it wasn’t too close to where I’m getting bombarded by friends and family and just non-stop, basically an open door policy, come in whenever you want and that’s kind of the way it is on the Shore here, you know, my buddies around, just coming in. If they did that all year, I think that would’ve gotten a little out of hand at times. It’s far enough where me and my wife can do our own little family thing. We’re having our first kid coming up here and it’s close enough where they can visit all of the time. Now it’s like a 6-hour drive and they can come whenever they want and we can kind of do our own little thing at times, too.”

Gaudreau took less money with Columbus as it was reported that the Devils offered “well north” of $10 million in average annual value, while Gaudreau’s deal with the Blue Jackets is roughly $9.8 million per year.

But he seems sure about his choice even though there were less contenders in the mix than he had anticipated when he told the Calgary Flames he would test the market.

In the end, it all worked out, and we will find out soon enough if it is for the best…