After losing Matt Duchene (Nashville), Ryan Dzingel (Carolina), Artemi Panarin (New York Rangers), and Sergei Bobrovsky (Florida) last offseason in free agency, the Columbus Blue Jackets made a surprising move to give a four-year, $22 million ($5.5 million AAV) contract to Gustav Nyquist, who had only reached fifty points once in his career, and never scored thirty goals in a season. It appears as if GM Jarmo Kekäläinen’s gamble paid off, as the Blue Jackets shockingly sit in the second wildcard spot in the Eastern Conference with a 33-22-15 record in seventy games played.

Gustav Nyquist played in all seventy games for the Blue Jackets this season, in which he scored fifteen goals, and registered twenty-seven assists for forty-two points. His fifteen goals were the fourth-most on the team, behind Oliver Bjorkstrand’s twenty-one, Zach Werenski’s twenty, and Pierre Luc-Dubois’ eighteen. Nyquist’s twenty-seven assists trail only Pierre-Luc Dubois’ thirty-one for the team lead, and his forty-two total points also trail Pierre-Luc Dubois’ forty-nine for the team lead. For more information about Pierre-Luc Dubois’ season statistics and contract status, check out our article on that here. This season, Nyquist had an impressive penalty taken/drawn ratio of 7:12, which was among the better ratios on the Blue Jackets. His giveaway/takeaway ratio wasn’t as impressive however, as it was a 41:27 (-14 turnover +/-). However, his +4 +/- rating was tied for seventh-best on the team with Alexandre Texier under Seth Jones and Eric Robinson (+10), Zach Werenski (+9), Oliver Bjorkstrand (+8), Riley Nash (+6), Jakob Lilja (+5).

AB wise, Nyquist finished the season with a solid +1.01 individual score, which was tied with Zach Werenski for ninth-best on the team. He trails only Oliver Bjorkstrand (+2.74), Eric Robinson (+2.33), Ryan MacInnis (+1.8), Kevin Stenlund (+1.65), Alexandre Texier (+1.55), Jakob Lilja (+1.44), and Cam Atkinson (+1.28). Nyquist’s career AB score is a +1.8, and he has never registered a negative individual AB score in the nine years of data we have on him. In fact, his +1.01 score this season was his best individual AB score since his +2.82 score with Detroit in 2014-15.

We ran Nyquist through our arbitration analyzer, and his closest comparable contracts were Boston’s Charlie Coyle, who makes $5.25 million AAV, and Anaheim’s Adam Henrique, who makes $5.825 million. Nyquist’s AAV falls almost exactly in-between these two with his $5.5 million AAV, which shows us that he is adequately paid. As surprising as this move was on July 1^st, 2019, Jarmo Kekäläinen and his staff knew the kind of player they were adding, and props to them for getting it done.