ANALYSIS: Jets’ Cole Perfetti ready to focus on hockey

Cole Perfetti greeted the media with a vibrant smile on Tuesday afternoon. As the owner of a new contract, and with a somewhat protracted negotiation now officially behind him, you could sense the relief in his disposition and the excitement to be back on the ice with his team.

For the next two years, the Jets will pay the 22-year-old $3.25 million per season — a market value that was widely considered across the league to be the sweet spot for his services based on projections and past performance, but numbers his camp had to significantly fall back to during their business dialogue with the Jets.

And while the Jets aren’t trumpeting a victory in negotiations, it was Perfetti’s representatives at KO Sports Inc., who blinked first, especially as two preseason games and a five-day training camp holdout progressed.

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In the end, the extremely likeable Perfetti — a first-round pick of the team in 2020 and a 19-goal scorer last season — called the agreement “a number that worked for both sides” and he’s now ready to focus on hockey, which will happen in earnest on Friday in Minnesota when he plays in his first preseason game.

Now, as a top-six player for the Jets, Perfetti’s addition to the roster certainly makes Winnipeg a much better and deeper team. And he’s an important part of the organizational youth that has either already been pushed into the lineup or is hovering on imminent arrival.

And while Perfetti refuted the notion Tuesday that this new contract is a two-year platform to bet on himself before the next round of negotiations in 2026, when he’ll still be under team control, it is for certain a two-season opportunity for him to play well, put up points and cement himself as a star on the team, to thereby receive the money and term he wants the next time around.

If that happens, it will be interesting to see how radiant his smile will be then.

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