Columbus Blue Jackets Call Up Markus Nutivarra

The Columbus Blue Jackets are getting a familiar face to replace Gabriel Carlsson. Good old Markus Nutivaara is coming back to Columbus.

Welcome back to the NHL Markus Nutivaara. The Columbus Blue Jackets announced that they have added the Finnish defenseman to replace Gabriel Carlsson. Carlsson will go on injured reserve following an upper body injury. The injury he sustained against the Minnesota Wild will have him on the IR for at least five days.

The void in the defense will be filled by the 23-year-old Finn who played 66 games with the Columbus Blue Jackets last season. His rise to the NHL squad was unexpected and he played surprisingly well. Nuti was a solid third pairing defenseman.

He played the season and at some point sustained a hip injury that he played through. Surgery was needed in the offseason to repair the damage.

Columbus Blue Jackets

Nutivaara was sent to Cleveland to start the season, mostly due to recall reasons. Nutivaara is one of three NHL quality defenseman the Jackets have that is waiver exempt. Zach Werenski was never going to be sent down.

The other is Carlsson who the organization clearly sees as a better defenseman than Nuti. Those three by the way have a combined cap hit annually of $2,636,666 according to CapFriendly.com.

Nuti vs Harrington

The next few games will likely see Scott Harrington draw in the third paring with Ryan Murray for two games. Nutivaara should get at least one opportunity.

The organization (mostly Torts) has shown that they like Harrington a lot and want to give him a chance. He hasn’t truly taken a firm spot on the NHL roster and Nutivaara getting called up opens the door to Nutivaara taking his spot.

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This is what I would like to see and will discuss more later on. It’s unlikely though since Harrington is not waiver exempt and would get picked up by an NHL team if he was put on waivers.

Welcome back to the show Nuti. Good to see you in union blue.