1) What is it about Jay Boumeester that teams just feel obligated to throw money after the very mediocre defensemen? His over rating started early going as a first round selection, third overall, of the Florida Panthers at the 2002 Entry draft. He did have a decent, but not spectatcular rookie season when he scored 20 points and was named to the NHL All rookie team in 2003. He played seven seasons in the Panthers peaking in 2005-06 when he scored 46 points. he also has scored 10+ goals 3 times before being traded to the Calgary Flames in 2009, with whom he played four seasons. His production fell to below 30 points/season there despite getting a hefty five-year, $33 million contract from Calgary.
2) To his credit he does hold the longest active NHL Iron man streak, having appeared in 635 consecutive regular season games as of the end of the 2013 NHL season. Bouwmeester also played in the 2007 and 2009 NHL All Star games. However he has never really been a true top NHL defensemen, not having ever even been a Norris Trophy Finalist. Despite this he has consistently been paid as such. Thus far he has made in excess of 35 million dollars! Fast forward to this weekend when despite his diminishing production the St Louis Blues decided that Bouwmeester deserved a nice extension along the lines of 5 years 5.4 million/per! To make that deal worse they threw in a "No Trade clause" on top of that already hefty paycheque. Perhaps at age 29 Jay will finally start to play like a top defensemen in the NHL?
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