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Report: ‘Hawks sign Anisimov to five-year, $22.75 mil extension

at Nassau Veterans Memorial Coliseum on April 11, 2015 in Uniondale, New York.

Artem Anisimov

Mike Stobe

The day after the Chicago Blackhawks acquired Artem Anisimov in the Brandon Saad trade, they have completed a five-year contract extension, according to Andy Strickland.

The financial terms of the deal weren’t immediately known, but Anisimov, 27, has one season left on his current three-year, $9.85 million deal.

Update: His contract is worth $22.75 million, per TSN’s Darren Dreger. That works out to a $4.55 million annual cap hit.

Like many members of the 2014-15 Columbus Blue Jackets, Anisimov was limited by health issues last season. In his case, he missed time because of a concussion and later triceps injury, but he still finished with seven goals and 27 points in 52 contests. He averaged 16:22 minutes per contest and was used regularly in both power play and shorthanded situations.

“He’s a player we’ve been trying to acquire for quite some time,” Blackhawks GM Stan Bowman said in Tuesday night’s post-trade conference call. “I talked a long time about our desire to find a big centerman. There’s very few of them in the NHL. You just look around at the 30 teams and to be able to get a guy in the prime of his career at 6-foot-4, who could do a little bit of everything, it’s someone we’ve been chasing for a long time.”

“We were finally able to acquire him. I think he fits in very nicely to our team. He’s able to play offensively as well as the penalty killing role. He’s done a little bit of everything in his career and I think for our needs, to know that we’ve got Toews and Anisimov, for years to come, that was a very big part of this.”

It’s worth noting that Chicago is still in a difficult cap situation despite moving Saad and that could lead to the Blackhawks making additional trades in the near future.

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