Columbus Blue Jackets

Blue Jackets extend RFA’s Sedlak, Hannikainen & Harrington
March 21, 2017, 4:38 PM ET [2 Comments]
Paul Berthelot
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The Blue Jackets have extended three pending RFA’s, centre Lukas Sedlak, winger Markus Hannikainen and defencemen Scott Harrington to two-year deals.




The dollar value of these deals has yet to be announced but it’s hard to see any one of these players getting a significant raise over what they already make. All three should come in around $650,000- $750,000.

These players being signed together leads me to believe me that these deals were rewards for their loyalty to the organization and not complaining about their situation. Harrington has been up with the NHL club the entire season and has gotten in to a grand total of 16 games. He’s been the teams 8th defencemen at times, he's been the 7th defencemen at times, but through it all he hasn’t complained (at least not publicly) about ice time or wanting to get into more games. He’s stuck it out, has been prepared when called upon to play and has been rewarded for that.

Hannikainen has been on a yo-yo this season continually being called up and sent back down to Cleveland. According to the AHL transactions page Hannikainen has been recalled and retuned 10 times by the Jackets this year. He has got into 10 games in the NHL and 43 in the AHL. He like Harrington has not complained about his situation.

Sedlak is in a bit of a different spot as he's been an NHL regular this season, playing in 56 games. He very recently fell into a tough situation. He was injured and missed some time, when he returned healthy, he has lost his spot in the line-up because of how well Oliver Bjorkstrand had been playing. It took Alexander Wennberg getting hit from behind and needing to miss a few games for Sedlak to get back in the line-up.

It’s a little weird to give depth players two-year deals. There’s not much incentive from the teams perspective to lock up depth players. With that being said, the team clearly likes these players and by all accounts the players seem to like the team. They know and have accepted their role. They don’t have the biggest roles but know what is expected of them when called upon. By signing two-year deals they have the opportunity to stay with this group, which looks like it could be something special down the road.