BayStBullies
Burn the Boats!
It’s easier with this:
Columbus didn’t enter the Gaudreau chat until after this. Note the time of the announcement, not the presser, everyone knew what it meant. Philly was out.
We know Columbus wasn’t counting to sign him earlier because Jarmo had a press conference announcing his big signing of the day… at 3pm.
Jarmo had mentioned that he called the Gaudreau camp at noon to say he was interested and went about his day and then all this happened after his 3pm presser.
Being closer to family by signing in the East was a goal apparently but Gaudreau really wanted to be a Flyer. He grew up a huge Flyers/Philly fan, spends his off-season in South Jersey and his family is mainly from Philly.
He’s also close friends with a number of players on Flyers and they’re all buddies: Hayes, Farrabee, Atkinson, and the newly signed DeAngelo. He worked out off-season for years with DeAngelo, they do charity (Checking for Charity) in South Jersey together. It’s kind of hilarious that the Flyers went out and added DeAngelo and then never even made a move for Gaudreau.
Gaudreau thought Philly would dump salary and call him. It also was rumored before this that even though the Devils were a back-up plan his wife didn’t want to live in the NY metro area, which is a problem with the Devils because their area is ~15 miles from Manhattan. That also makes the NYI a no go.
He was likely hoping for a bidding war between those two teams but that never materialized. (It’s not like Lou could even afford to add any initial offer, it’s a stretch that they could make this work.) As people have said, it’s not hard to visit from Ohio, so being North Jersey wasn’t a huge win. It’s unclear what they Devils bid was (I’ve heard several different numbers).
Why the Blue Jackets viewed Erik Gudbranson as their 'No. 1 target' in free agency
Gudbranson's signing, for four years and $16 million, raised eyebrows around the NHL.theathletic.com
Johnny Gaudreau stunned the NHL, and he's 'over the moon' to play for the Blue Jackets
"It kind of came out of the blue," GM Jarmo Kekalainen said of the blockbuster free-agent signing.theathletic.com
You don't know if they attempted a move, though.