The Winnipeg Jets have signed Drew Stafford to a two year contract with an annual average (AAV) of $4.35 million. Retaining Stafford over Michael Frolik is an interesting choice for the Jets. While Stafford was a fine scorer for the Jets during the course of the season, he shot double his career average shooting percentage and was a mess defensively.
Retaining Stafford is not a terrible move if he can provide some secondary scoring for the Jets as they are thin on wing. The issue is he is being paid for out-performing his career average over a small sample size. The issue with the contract is that salary cap is not likely to rise much over the next couple years and next summer both Jacob Trouba, Mark Scheifele, Andrew Ladd, Dustin Byfuglien, and Adam Lowry are all going to need new contracts. The Jets are a budget team and this contract could hurt their internal budget when it comes down to those important contracts.
The key is that the term is only two years. That means that long-term, the Jets are not married to a bad player and he should be able to be traded if the team wants to deal him at some point.
