One Final Trade Deadline Primer for the Blue Jackets
By Curtis Deem
The week of the trade deadline has finally arrived, and at some point over the next five days we’ll have some answers on several players for the Columbus Blue Jackets. A flurry of trades happened over the weekend – including some big names being moved – but so far, things have been quiet for GM Jarmo Kekalainen. I expect that to change soon.
The Jackets have plenty of names in the rumor mill, though I suspect some of them are probably just dreamt up by opposition fanbases. We know that Vladislav Gavrikov, Joonas Korpisalo, and possibly Gustav Nyquist are being actively shopped. Some other names have popped up, like Andrew Peeke and Boone Jenner; but ultimately a move like that feels better suited for an upgrade package this summer if it’s going to be made.
With the team sitting dead last in the standings however, anything is possible. When you look at the return Tanner Jeannot got for the Nashville Predators yesterday, you get a sense of what we’re talking about here. If someone wants to come along and pluck away a player you don’t want to trade – you have to listen.
So, while we consider it highly unlikely that a player like Jenner will be playing somewhere else this spring, a seismic shift like that could potentially happen. Today we’ll run down the names most rumored one more time, and give a brief idea of how these trades might go down.
D Vladislav Gavrikov – UFA ($2.8m AAV)
Gavrikov has been a healthy scratch for “trade related reasons” for more than two weeks now, and we all want to see this one come to an end soon, for his sake if nothing else. Good guy Vlad wants, and deserves to play; and if a rumored trade with the Bruins hadn’t fell through, I feel like this one would have been over by now.
Rumored asking price: 1st + 3rd round picks. Teams interested: LA Kings, Edmonton, Toronto.
The Jackets will probably have to back off of that asking price at this point, if they want to move Vlad early and try to take a run at Jakob Chychrun (more on that later). After seeing Edmonton this weekend, I feel like they could really benefit from an in-zone defender like this, and the smoke around Jesse Puljujarvi could make this interesting for Columbus. Would something like a 2nd, 3rd and Puljujarvi get it done?