Columbus Blue Jackets defenseman Adam Boqvist is set to be placed on waivers for a buyout. The team expects to save $2.7 million on Boqvist’s $3.2 million salary next year. Despite his talent, Boqvist has struggled with injuries and inconsistent play. He has been in and out of Columbus’ lineup over the past three seasons. If he clears waivers, the Blue Jackets will be responsible for a third of his contract value over the next two seasons.Columbus Blue Jackets defenseman Adam Boqvist is set to be placed on waivers for a buyout. The team expects to save $2.7 million on Boqvist’s $3.2 million salary next year. Despite his talent, Boqvist has struggled with injuries and inconsistent play. He has been in and out of Columbus’ lineup over the past three seasons. If he clears waivers, the Blue Jackets will be responsible for a third of his contract value over the next two seasons.
The Columbus Blue Jackets are expected to unconditionally place junior defenseman Adam Boqvist on waivers for a buyout fee later on Sunday, according to Aaron Portzline of The Athletic.
The Blue Jackets would only be responsible for a third of his contract value if he were to clear unconditional waivers, as he will be bought out before he is 26.
That would burden Columbus with a $533,000 cap hit over the next two seasons, a full $2.7 million savings on Boqvist’s $3.2 million salary next year, but also leave them with an empty cap in 2025-26.
Boqvist is a surprising name on a list of pre-July 1 buyouts that also includes Jack Campbell and Nate Schmidt. Unlike those two, Boqvist is closer to the beginning of his career than the end of it, though he is no stranger to problems.
Boqvist has been in and out of Columbus’ lineups over the past three seasons since they acquired him from the Chicago Blackhawks, in addition to the picks used on David Jiricek, Cole Sillinger and Aleksi Heimosalmi. In return, Columbus gave up defenseman Seth Jones and the picks used on Nolan Allan and Dominic Jones.
Boqvist joined the Blue Jackets with 76 NHL games and 29 points to his name. But despite moving to a Columbus team that was less competitive than Chicago at the time, Boqvist was unable to work his way up the depth chart.
Instead, he spent much of his freshman year in the team’s third pairing, scoring an evenly split 22 points in 55 games. That was enough offense to give him a slight boost in power play time last season, with Boqvist backing up the boost with a career-high 24 points in 46 games.
But Boqvist hasn’t been able to avoid the injury bug in any of his five NHL seasons. That came to a head this season, when an upper-body injury ended Boqvist’s season in mid-March after routinely keeping him out of the lineup since December.
He played only 35 games this year, the fewest games he has played in a single season, giving Boqvist a personal low of 10 points.
Despite his clear talent for carrying and managing the puck, a lack of certainty in making plays and flippant defense have kept Boqvist from getting started.
He was previously assigned a cap hit of $2.6 million this season — an amount that could be acceptable to teams looking for a spark on waivers. If he makes it to the open market, the young Boqvist will certainly have no shortage of candidates.
