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Jay Bouwmeester hasn't been in St. Louis long but he and the Blues have seen enough to agree to a contract extension.
Bouwmeester, who has a $6.68 million cap hit next season, the final season of his existing contract, signed a five-year deal with the Blues. According to Jeremy Rutherford (among others), the deal is worth $27 million, or $5.4 million annually.
As you can tell, that represents a somewhat substantial decrease in salary but don't feel too bad for Bouwmeester, that's still good money. Really, it seems to be more of market correction rather than anything else for Bouwmeester. The existing contract had brought that much more pressure on Bouwmeester and when his offensive numbers had dipped, it only made things look worse.
Bouwmeester's offensive numbers started to come back this past season but the Flames weren't going anywhere and so they decided to offload him to the Blues just before the trade deadline. In the final 14 games of the season Bouwmeester had a goal and six assists, bringing his season totals to seven goals and 15 assists, close to the pace of numbers he had in Florida before going to Calgary.
The focus on his offense always distracted a bit from his defensive game. While Bouwmeester isn't the most shutdown guy you will find in the league and isn't as fleet of foot as he once was, he's a reliable man in his own zone. Not to mention you can rely that he will always be in the lineup. The only game he has missed in the past eight seasons came because of the mid-season trade to St. Louis.
Keep in mind that this contract won't take affect this season so the Blues still have a little less than $9 million to re-sign both Alex Pietrangelo.
