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Calgary Flames, Josh Jooris avoid arbitration, settle for one-year, $975,000 deal

The Calgary Flames are officially getting work done, having re-signed two restricted free agents over the past two days.

By arii
Rich Lam/Getty Images

Just one day after avoiding arbitration with Lance Bouma, the Calgary Flames have done the same with centre Josh Jooris. His contract is far cheaper, and more of the "show me" variety that led to Bouma's big deal: one year, $975,000.

Jooris' arbitration hearing was scheduled for July 28. Obviously, that's not happening now. We never even made it to the 48 hours before, where both sides submit their offers, as was the case with Bouma.

So Jooris and the Flames were never too far apart, and reached a deal that's a modest, $50,000 raise from his previous $925,000 contract. Now, Jooris has another year with the Flames to prove he deserves more.

The undrafted forward was a surprising player for Calgary this past season, coming out of nowhere to take training camp by storm before eventually making the NHL just five games into the season. He played throughout the lineup, from centring Johnny Gaudreau and Jiri Hudler to becoming the Flames' top penalty killer in the playoffs. He scored 12 goals and 24 points over 60 games, including his first goal in his first game:

And, of course, a hat trick in his rookie year:

Now, it's up to Jooris to get better. He posted the Flames' best CF at 47.00% among all regular forwards, but had the benefit of +6.41% relative zone starts in order to do so. In short: he was among the Flames' best when it came to possessing the puck, but he had the advantage of often starting in the offensive zone in order to keep the play going north.

If he can maintain those positive corsi figures while starting to shift into a more defensive role, then the Flames will have a really good depth player on their hands. As it stands, his overall play benefited the team.

Calgary still has to re-sign Paul Byron, whose arbitration date is set for July 30, as well as remaining restricted free agents Micheal Ferland and Turner Elson.

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