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Listening to general manager Kevin Cheveldayoff last week, it would appear the Winnipeg Jets are still very much interested in re-signing star forward Nikolaj Ehlers.
With essentially one month to go before the 29-year-old Dane hits the open market as an unrestricted free agent, you could say negotiations – if those are truly happening – are past Defcon 5 and rapidly nearing the eleventh hour.
During his season-ending availability a week ago Wednesday, the Jets GM said the team would put its best foot forward with Ehlers to try to make a case for him to be a unique Jet for life.
In the time between then and now, one would presume that overture has been extended and the Jets’ willingness to consummate a new contract understood by the Ehlers camp.
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From this seat, however, it may not be the Jets’ decision any longer and the one major stumbling block to Ehlers’ continued future in Winnipeg is, in fact, Ehlers himself.
After 10 seasons, nearly 700 games, 225 goals and more than 500 points with the organization, if Ehlers wanted to stay with the Jets, an extension would have been signed long ago.
But frankly, he was non-committal, refusing to discuss the subject when pressed earlier in the season, avoiding it totally as the campaign progressed and then seemingly just walking away by boarding a plane for the world championship within hours of the Jets’ season concluding against Dallas.
Putting it together, the silence is unmistakably deafening.
As Cheveldayoff also said last week, players like Ehlers have earned the right to become free agents and that opportunity is respected, but without a doubt, the further this situation moved to this moment, the further it got from ever happening.
Sure, the Jets are interested in re-signing Ehlers – they said so last week. The problem is, in reading the tea leaves, it’s become painfully clear to many that Ehlers has no interest in re-signing with the Jets.
