Columbus Blue Jackets Should Not Protect Jack Johnson in Expansion Draft

The Columbus Blue Jackets are undoubtedly racking their brains on who to protect for June’s NHL Expansion Draft. One of their players is guaranteed to be plucked away and shipped to the Vegas Golden Knights. In my opinion, Jack Johnson should be that player if Vegas wants a CBJ defenseman.

The expansion draft is less than two months away so it’s prime time to start talking about how the Columbus Blue Jackets should approach the event. Only able to protect nine to eleven eligible players, the Jackets will see one of their exposed players chosen by the Vegas Golden Knights.

For the unfamiliar, teams can choose to protect players in one of two formats. The first choice is to protect seven forwards, three defensemen, and one goaltender. The second is to protect eight skaters and one goaltender. The first option obviously nets more player protections while the second offers greater flexibility.

For the sake of argument, we’ll say that the Blue Jackets will go with the first choice (which they probably will). This means that they will have to pick which defensemen that they don’t want Vegas to scoop up. The eligible defensemen, based on contract situation, games played, No Movement clauses, tenure, and injury include the following.

Right off the bat, the threesome of Ramage, Sifers, and Stanton all should be exposed. There’d be absolutely no reason to protect them. Harrington, despite playing well in limited time, also is not worth protection. Quincey is out of possibly becoming protected as well. He’s an unrestricted free agent this summer so he may not (and probably will not) be in a Blue Jackets uniform next season anyways.

This is where it gets tough. We have four players left, but we can only protect three. Johnson, Jones, Murray, and Savard all played considerable time this season with each of the four playing at least 60 games.

I’d say that Seth Jones is fairly safe, judging from the fact he is the youngest (and highest paid) of the four aforementioned blue liners as well as the leading scorer of the bunch. Next, I would lock up David Savard. The bearded Canadian did a great job this season, leading the team in plus-minus and finishing among the top five skaters in time on ice, point shares, blocks, and hits.

With only one defenseman protection slot left, we have two players: Jack Johnson and Ryan Murray. If I were in Jarmo Kekäläinen’s shoes, I’d protect Ryan Murray, effectively exposing Johnson to Vegas (that sounds kind of weird).

The reasoning behind exposing a proven veteran while protecting an injury-prone youngster is that Vegas is more likely to take a young defenseman that might turn into a star than an older player such as Jack Johnson. JJ is a reliable leader for the young defensive core that inhabits Columbus but his best years are behind him. He’s not a spring chicken anymore. At age 30, Johnson will be entering his 11th NHL season this coming October.

Johnson also will receive about $4.36MM next year. Murray, on the other hand will only get $2.825MM. Both deals end after next season but JJ will be an unrestricted free agent while Murray will become a restricted free agent.

Aside from the age and money, it’s a tough argument to make to protect Murray over Johnson. Murray has had various injuries pop up here and there throughout his four-year career. He has only played all 82 games once in that time with that coming last season.

No matter who the Blue Jackets decide to expose, I don’t believe Vegas will go after them. The plethora of talent in the CBJ forwards will probably entice the Golden Knights to make a move on them over the defensemen. Several young and promising Columbus forwards will have to be exposed due to the sheer number of them.

But if Vegas snags a CBJ blue liner, it is better to have it be Jack Johnson than the others. Even despite his loyalty and impact to this Columbus Blue Jackets team, JJ would not be a protected player if I were the General Manager.