The Beaufort Gyre mean state is theorized to be set by surface wind stress, local sea ice, and subsurface mesoscale eddy transport. The mesoscale eddies in this context are subject to an important restriction: they must be generated within the Beaufort Gyre region despite the presence of a heavy sea ice cover. This study considers how sea ice drag affects the characteristics of the Beaufort Gyre mesoscale eddy field. We use carefully constructed high-resolution (2km x 2km) MITgcm simulations forced by the Beaufort Gyre mean state to spin up a steady state eddy field. Each simulation is initialized with varying sea ice concentrations — a proxy for ice induced drag — and characterized by their steady state density transport and eddy kinetic energy. We find that simulations subject to high ($\geq80$\%) sea ice concentrations indeed generate a halocline intensified turbulent eddy field with max eddy energy near $2 \times 10^{-3}$ \unit{\metre\squared\per\second\squared}. In contrast, low sea ice concentration simulations exhibit surface intensified mixing with much higher maximum eddy energy $\order{10^{-2}\,\unit{\metre\squared\per\second\squared}}$. While high drag conditions largely isolate eddy transport to within the halocline, low drag conditions exhibit vertically coupled eddy transport extending from the surface and through the halocline to quiescent depths. This work both suggests the presence of locally generated halocline intensified eddies and provides insight into the future behavior of the Beaufort Gyre as we slowly transition to an ice free Arctic.