Jets have Pierre-Luc Dubois under contract for another season
Anthony Scultore
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The Winnipeg Jets can breathe a little sigh of relief as Pierre-Luc Dubois accepted his qualifying offer on Friday for one-year, $6 million.
Dubois, 24, registered 28 goals and 60 points in 81 games this past season. He was coming off a two-year deal he signed with the Columbus Blue Jackets in 2020-21 ($5M AAV).
Selected third overall in the 2016 Draft, Dubois has amassed 239 career points in 361 games split between Columbus and Winnipeg. He was sent to the Jets for Patrik Laine and Jack Roslovic in January 2021 after his trade request and fallout with coach John Tortorella became public.
Pierre-Luc Dubois signs qualifying offer
Leading up to Dubois accepting his qualifying offer, he informed the Jets that he intends on testing the free agent market as soon as he can in 2024.
Since that news hit, interest in Dubois has come from several teams that featured the New York Rangers and Montreal Canadiens.
The native of Ste-Agathe-Des-Monts, Quebec has always had a rumored desire to play for his hometown team. That became obvious when his agent Pat Brisson made some eyebrow raising comments.
“Montreal is a city he would probably … I can talk about it because he doesn’t have a contract at the moment — he’s a restricted free agent,” Brisson told TVA Sports in French on Wednesday. “Montreal is a place, a city he’d like to play in. That’s all I can say about that.”
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Those remarks further fueled speculation when reports surfaced that Dubois attended the draft in Montreal because he believed a trade to the Canadiens was in the works.
Although the deal never came to fruition, Radio-Canada Sports’ Martin Leclerc said that the Habs offered three players for Dubois’s negotiation rights. The Jets obviously didn’t feel it was enough.
According to Sportsnet, Dubois will address the media on Monday. It’s expected he will discuss his future and his agents comments.
