It seems like so long ago, but it will only be six years this spring. In 2019, Jarmo Kekalainen stunned the hockey world by not only hanging onto his two prized pending UFAs at the trade deadline - he went two steps further and bolstered his roster for one crack at the Stanley Cup. While it didn't pay off with a championship, his decisions did give us the most exciting stretch of NHL hockey in Central Ohio history. But I have to wonder: what if he had gone the other way?
Whenever someone says the Blue Jackets have been terrible for their entire existence, there always seems to be someone else clapping back with that time they beat the President's Trophy winning Tampa Bay Lightning in a four game sweep. Hockey in Columbus is often overlooked, so we're used to this question.
Whether you're a lifer like myself, here since the franchise's inception; or you've just picked up the sport in the last few years, it's our most proud moment. So we continue to hang our hats on that one spring when we beat the NHL's best team. Those were fun times.
Rebuilding isn't fun. Would it have gone quicker without the 2019 run?
Since that series win, I won't say it's been all downhill. But mostly, it hasn't been much fun. The Jackets did have a surprisingly successful run the next season - even beating the heavily favored Toronto Maple Leafs in the COVID bubble play-in series. But for the most part, this team has fallen deep in to a rebuild that they are only just starting to come out of.
This brings me to a two fold question. First, how much different could things have been during this rebuild if the Jackets had held onto the assets they used to acquire Matt Duchene, Ryan Dzingel and the other players they added at that 2019 deadline? And second, would they have further expedited things if they'd traded away their two star Russians?
First, let's break down the assets from the flurry of trades Jarmo made to bolster this roster that spring...