Pierre-Luc Dubois said Monday that he is committed to the Winnipeg Jets for next season, but did little to quell speculation about his future beyond that.
The 24-year-old forward, who was a restricted free agent, signed a one-year, $6 million contract on Friday.
“If he wanted to get out of Winnipeg, he would have asked for a trade,” Dubois said. “I didn’t ask for a trade. I had no doubt I was going to show up to (training) camp. Once we figured out the one-year deal was the way to go, we were just waiting for the qualifying offer and waiting for that. Then we signed. that, and now I’m going to camp and I’m excited to meet everyone, the new coaching staff and the new players. I spoke with the coach [Rick Bowness] on Saturday or Sunday, and I’m really excited to get it up and running this year.”
Because Dubois signed a qualifying offer with Winnipeg, he’ll be RFA again next offseason.
“I think this is a very, very important decision that cannot be made quickly,” Dubois said. “It can only be done after thinking about it for a long time, asking for the opinion of my family, my parents, my girlfriend. In the middle of my next contract, maybe I’ll have a family, you don’t know, there’s so many things that could happen that I don’t want to move too fast and regret it later. When you tell yourself that you want to be somewhere for a long time, you have to be sure of it not only for the first or second year, but for the duration of the contract.”
Reports of Dubois wanting to leave Winnipeg began to surface when his agent, Pat Brisson, told TVA Sports on July 13 that Dubois, a native of Ste-Agathe-des-Monts, Quebec, is interested in playing for the Montréal. Canadians.
“In the first place, for [Brisson’s] intention, I don’t know,” Dubois said. “I talked to Pat now that the contract is out, so less now, but we talked a lot during the week. I wasn’t aware (of his comments) until one of my friends pointed it out to me. I trust Pat, he is my agent. … I think he is the best in the business. If I didn’t think that, I wouldn’t be with him. But what he does and what he says, I trust him.
“I’m ready for the season and next summer will be next summer. Next summer, I’ll be a restricted free agent again, and then it’ll be another decision. But for now, I don’t have to think about this anymore. You try not to think about it.” because you can’t control it. All I could do was play this year to the best of my ability and let my agent and the team do the talking.”
Dubois scored 60 points, including an NHL career-high 28 goals, in 81 games for the Jets last season. He also set career highs in power play goals (15), power play points (19), game-winning goals (six), and penalty minutes (106).
Selected by the Columbus Blue Jackets with the No. 3 pick in the 2016 NHL Draft, Dubois has 239 points (102 goals, 137 assists) in 369 regular-season games with the Blue Jackets and Jets, and 22 points (eight goals , 14 assists) in 33 Stanley Cup Playoff games.
Dubois was traded to the Jets by the Blue Jackets for forwards patrick laine Y Jack Roslovic on January 23, 2021, two days after then-coach John Tortorella benched him in an overtime loss to the Tampa Bay Lightning.
Tortorella had confirmed 10 days earlier that Dubois told the team he no longer wanted to play for them.
“Everyone has changed their minds, everyone has had different ideas, everyone, at some point, liked something and then realized they didn’t,” Dubois said. “It’s human nature to change your mind sometimes. That’s why I have articles to write, but these questions, sometimes these questions, the answers to questions are not as easy as yes or no.”