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.