2023 Trade Deadline (03/03/23 3PM EST)

[VT]

You are worrying about something that’s 2.5 years away, that’s a very long time.

I understand he wants to play real games and Columbus would have 2.5 years to convince him they are real.

He’d enter a great situation in Columbus.
They have a top3 prospect pool in the league and could add a franchise C prospect this summer.

They have Gaudreau/Laine/Werenski as veterans.
Now add Gaudreau/Laine/Werenski/Chychrun core with a top prospect pool in the league and you are looking at a legit exciting young team.

& no one is saying pay 2 own 1st round picks for him.
This would be using a player who’s not going to stay in Columbus+ to land a more longterm player.

You’d rather give someone an anchor contract instead than try your luck with Chychrun?

Where’s the real downside?

-Columbus has to start winning soon, they will need to be aggressive
- The price with Gavrikov trade isn’t anything crazy
- the cap hit/contract is zero risk
- You can sell him in 2 years time to gain assets back if it doesn’t work

Where’s the massive downside?
I’d rather target Chychrun than overpay a 30y that’s going to hurt the roster and I’d rather target Chychrun than do nothing.

Unless Columbus wins Bedard lottery they won’t be a top5 destination this summer for top players.
Chychrun is under contract

As @koteka wrote, Chychrun is often injured. In addition, there is one more thing - Werenski. Chychrun is considered a better defenseman, he plays in the 1PP Unit. If we get him, then what?

 

[koteka]

You’d rather give someone an anchor contract instead than try your luck with Chychrun?

Where’s the real downside?

I say grow slowly and smartly and don’t make any stupid moves. We have no goalie. We have no center. We have no top 4 right defensemen. We have wings and a really good left defensemen. The two things I do not give up assets for are a left D and wings. There are smarter ways to get a veteran left D - like take the last two years of a contract on a guy that a team who needs cap space is willing to deal. I am willing to make trades, but I am not giving up any valuable asset for an often injured left D who will walk in 2025 when hopefully we are good again.

 

[tunnelvision]

Giving up assets for Chychrun makes no sense. Maybe you think we can flip him for similar assets at the deadline in 2025 so he won’t cost much, but we are talking about a guy who is injured almost as much as Ryan Murray and Nick Blankenburg, so that is a huge risk to take.

I'm curious to know (sorry if you have already answered this somewhere implicitly) how would you fix the defense for next year, with the presumption that owners, FO and fans are not okay with finishing 25th in the league which is what you seem to predict?

 

[koteka]

I'm curious to know (sorry if you have already answered this somewhere implicitly) how would you fix the defense for next year, with the presumption that owners, FO and fans are not okay with finishing 25th in the league which is what you seem to predict?

I don’t think it can be fixed next year. I think it is another two years away at least. I would accept that reality and try to marginally improve without mortgaging the future. Getting a new goalie and having guys back from injury playing in an actual scheme with a new coach might be a good start.

Here would be my phase 1 of a plan:
1) Trade Korpi
2) Trade Gavrikov
3) Fire Brad Larsen
4) Draft a goalie with a late first or early 2nd
5) Sign someone like Adin Hill in the off season
6) Install a simple defensive scheme that the players buy into
7) See if a team is willing to move a vet defenseman who is overpaid with a couple of years left on his contract
8) Waive Elvis and send him to Cleveland

run a simpler scheme with

Werenski - Peeke
overpaid left D - Boqvist
Bean - Gudbranson
Blankenburg

and let Jiricek develop one more year in the AHL.

Until our centers (hopefully) develop, I am not rushing anything.

 

[Double-Shift Lasse]

roslovic definitely isn't a fit for torts on paper but his best season here was the one where torts was the head coach, so… maybe torts actually liked him?

given the tension between hayes and torts + hayes's friendship with gaudreau, i could actually see him waiving to come here.

the term doesn't seem ideal on the surface, but hayes is younger than i realized (30) – the deal will expire when he's 34. if cbj gets lucky enough to draft a bedard/fantilli, their ELC will expire the same summer as hayes's current contract.

in the meantime, he's basically getting 2C money and could be a temporary/stopgap 1C for columbus, then slide down to 2C if a better option presents itself, or be a plus 3C at the end of his contract. factor in the low acquisition cost and he's kind of a perfect (albeit partial) solution to the center woes.

That all sounds like the kind of player we’d like Sillinger to become.

 

[BB88]

I say grow slowly and smartly and don’t make any stupid moves. We have no goalie. We have no center. We have no top 4 right defensemen. We have wings and a really good left defensemen. The two things I do not give up assets for are a left D and wings. There are smarter ways to get a veteran left D - like take the last two years of a contract on a guy that a team who needs cap space is willing to deal. I am willing to make trades, but I am not giving up any valuable asset for an often injured left D who will walk in 2025 when hopefully we are good again.

How would Chychrun be a stupid move?

& I’d bet all my wages on Jarmo and the company not wanting to see Columbus at the bottom of the standings next year.
& they could do it without hurting the future one bit.

After this draft they should have been able to draft all the core pieces you need and have the best/top3 prospect pool in the league.

 

[stevo61]

Is Lohrei going to be another Paliotta? When I think big defenseman that does well in college at 21/22 I remember Paliotta.

 

[BB88]

As @koteka wrote, Chychrun is often injured. In addition, there is one more thing - Werenski. Chychrun is considered a better defenseman, he plays in the 1PP Unit. If we get him, then what?

Chychrun has injury concerns.
Still he’s just entering his prime, on a cheap contfact and ”cheap” for Columbus because of those injury concerns.

Werenski- Jiricek
Chychrun- Blankenburg/Ceulemans
Is a legit top4 to build around and try to forget this season.

I’d rather pay a Gavrikov return+ grade A asset than sign a anchor.

With or without Chychrun Columbus has a top3 prospect pool in the league so you wouldn’t be risking the future.
It’s a risk worth the risk

I don’t think it can be fixed next year. I think it is another two years away at least. I would accept that reality and try to marginally improve without mortgaging the future. Getting a new goalie and having guys back from injury playing in an actual scheme with a new coach might be a good start.

Here would be my phase 1 of a plan:
1) Trade Korpi
2) Trade Gavrikov
3) Fire Brad Larsen
4) Draft a goalie with a late first or early 2nd
5) Sign someone like Adin Hill in the off season
6) Install a simple defensive scheme that the players buy into
7) See if a team is willing to move a vet defenseman who is overpaid with a couple of years left on his contract
8) Waive Elvis and send him to Cleveland

run a simpler scheme with

Werenski - Peeke
overpaid left D - Boqvist
Bean - Gudbranson
Blankenburg

and let Jiricek develop one more year in the AHL.

Until our centers (hopefully) develop, I am not rushing anything.

Who’s the left Dman you are overpaying?

 

[cbjthrowaway]

As @koteka wrote, Chychrun is often injured. In addition, there is one more thing - Werenski.

if we're going to talk about chychrun's injury history we should mention werenski's as well

Chychrun is considered a better defenseman, he plays in the 1PP Unit. If we get him, then what?

…then we have two top-pair quality LHD?

could skew the ice time heavily toward the top two pairs (giving werenski and chychrun both #1 type ice time) and shelter the third pair.

the power play is less of a consideration anyway seeing as werenski isn't actually good at running the point, and jiricek/boqvist have the advantage of being right handed to feed laine anyway.

worth noting that chychrun's cap hit is less than half of werenski's, too. he's getting #4 defenseman money. there's so much surplus value there before even considering that they could recoup the acquisition cost via trade if he chooses to not extend.

 

[Xoggz22]

As @koteka wrote, Chychrun is often injured. In addition, there is one more thing - Werenski. Chychrun is considered a better defenseman, he plays in the 1PP Unit. If we get him, then what?

I would argue that Boqvist is better on PP1 than Werenski. Currently we can't really role a PP2 because we lack that depth to have any confidence. If Chychrun were better at PP1, no coach would put a lesser option in place to smooth feelings. Think of how many times we have to force PP1 out there because we don't have the depth/confidence to start PP2... it's very rare. No reason you also couldn't have a traditional 2 D if they were that good for PP1.

To me, that's not a reason you don't go get someone. Now I can't speak on how to handle the injured part but that's part of hockey. It doesn't appear that CHychrun has the same injury over and over so I don't worry too much about that.

I am also a proponent (but have been for quite some time if anyone looks at old threads) for getting Chychrun. I think having 2 years of control with our current prospect pool and actual talent (when not injured) changes this team from a bottom 5 to playoff bubble team quickly. Additions like Marchenko, Johnson, this year's 1st, Jiricek... goes a long way to becoming a very, very good team. What will hold us back is not this discussion but rather our goaltending. That has me more concerned than what assets we would have to move to improve the skaters or how to handle a guy 2 years down the road. If we're good, he'll see that and want to be part of it. If not, you recover some assets and expect that Mateychuk or Svozil is ready for bigger minutes in year 3. That's very realistic.

 

[DarkandStormy]

Did I miss the downgrade of "three 1sts" (equivalents) to "two 1sts" for Chychrun?

 

[tunnelvision]

4) Draft a goalie with a late first or early 2nd

Must be a very good one if you're willing to sacrifice such key asset for a goalie prospect.

8) Waive Elvis and send him to Cleveland

Why do you send him to CLE if we're in no hurry with the retool?

Werenski - Peeke
overpaid left D - Boqvist
Bean - Gudbranson
Blankenburg

and let Jiricek develop one more year in the AHL.

Until our centers (hopefully) develop, I am not rushing anything.

Better defense could accelerate the development of centers, don't you think?

Is Lohrei going to be another Paliotta? When I think big defenseman that does well in college at 21/22 I remember Paliotta.

My recollection of Paliotta is that he was more of a physical, defense-first guy with a hard shot but poor puck skills. Lohrei seems to be sort of opposite of that, a well-skating puckmover who hasn't quite learned yet how to utilize his rangy body in defense to his advantage?

 

[VT]

if we're going to talk about chychrun's injury history we should mention werenski's as well

…then we have two top-pair quality LHD?

could skew the ice time heavily toward the top two pairs (giving werenski and chychrun both #1 type ice time) and shelter the third pair.

the power play is less of a consideration anyway seeing as werenski isn't actually good at running the point, and jiricek/boqvist have the advantage of being right handed to feed laine anyway.

worth noting that chychrun's cap hit is less than half of werenski's, too. he's getting #4 defenseman money. there's so much surplus value there before even considering that they could recoup the acquisition cost via trade if he chooses to not extend.

Werenski is signes and I'm not sure whether is good to have two similar players.

O.K. And now tell it these players, coaches. I see how they are happy to do it.

 

[VT]

I would argue that Boqvist is better on PP1 than Werenski. Currently we can't really role a PP2 because we lack that depth to have any confidence. If Chychrun were better at PP1, no coach would put a lesser option in place to smooth feelings. Think of how many times we have to force PP1 out there because we don't have the depth/confidence to start PP2... it's very rare. No reason you also couldn't have a traditional 2 D if they were that good for PP1.

To me, that's not a reason you don't go get someone. Now I can't speak on how to handle the injured part but that's part of hockey. It doesn't appear that CHychrun has the same injury over and over so I don't worry too much about that.

I am also a proponent (but have been for quite some time if anyone looks at old threads) for getting Chychrun. I think having 2 years of control with our current prospect pool and actual talent (when not injured) changes this team from a bottom 5 to playoff bubble team quickly. Additions like Marchenko, Johnson, this year's 1st, Jiricek... goes a long way to becoming a very, very good team. What will hold us back is not this discussion but rather our goaltending. That has me more concerned than what assets we would have to move to improve the skaters or how to handle a guy 2 years down the road. If we're good, he'll see that and want to be part of it. If not, you recover some assets and expect that Mateychuk or Svozil is ready for bigger minutes in year 3. That's very realistic.

Let's be under no illusions, Werenski will play in the PP1 Unit. Regardless, Boqvist is better.

I like Chychrun too and I know young defensemen need time. But it wouldn't be extra if he was injured that often.

 

[Xoggz22]

Werenski is signes and I'm not sure whether is good to have two similar players.

O.K. And now tell it these players, coaches. I see how they are happy to do it.

I suspect you know this but hockey is about winning, first and foremost. Happy players is great but you want to be PP1, earn it and do better than the other guy. Do you really think that Zach isn't going to get 20+ minutes a night with Chychrun on board? You now can have more confidence (for another 2 years) that you don't need to rely on 26 minutes a night for Zach and can have minutes/responsibility/skill spread through the lineup. This creates less matchup issues on the road and also improves at home. Heck, they could both play on the top pair if that's what it came to.

 

[koteka]

Who’s the left Dman you are overpaying?

I am taking on a contract, not signing a new person. There has to be a left D out there that makes more than his fair share in a flat cap world that can bridge us until our young D are ready.

Werenski- Jiricek
Chychrun- Blankenburg/Ceulemans
Is a legit top4 to build around and try to forget this season.

The problem with this scenario is Chychrun will not be in Columbus when Jiricek is a true top pair defenseman and Ceulemans is hopefully a decent second pair guy. And if he is, you’ll be paying him Werenski type money. And that is too much to invest in two left D.

I’d bet all my wages on Jarmo and the company not wanting to see Columbus at the bottom of the standings next year.

Personally I don’t think Jarmo and JD should be allowed to stick around, so I don’t think they should be too worried about the Jackets’ future.

 

[cbjthrowaway]

Do you really think that Zach isn't going to get 20+ minutes a night with Chychrun on board? You now can have more confidence (for another 2 years) that you don't need to rely on 26 minutes a night for Zach and can have minutes/responsibility/skill spread through the lineup. This creates less matchup issues on the road and also improves at home. Heck, they could both play on the top pair if that's what it came to.

you could also end up with two pseudo top pairs (i.e. werenski - jiricek and chychrun - blankenburg/boqvist) that both play ~22-25 minutes a night.

allows them to be really selective in how they deploy the gudbranson pair – which is the type of scenario where he thrived last year in calgary.

 

[VT]

I suspect you know this but hockey is about winning, first and foremost. Happy players is great but you want to be PP1, earn it and do better than the other guy. Do you really think that Zach isn't going to get 20+ minutes a night with Chychrun on board? You now can have more confidence (for another 2 years) that you don't need to rely on 26 minutes a night for Zach and can have minutes/responsibility/skill spread through the lineup. This creates less matchup issues on the road and also improves at home. Heck, they could both play on the top pair if that's what it came to.

Of course Zach would be but again PP Unit is important for them. It's the ego. Also if Boqvist stays, it would be pretty weird so that he wouldn't play PP if he's better than Zach.

 

[koteka]

After this draft they should have been able to draft all the core pieces you need and have the best/top3 prospect pool in the league.

Who are 1C, 2C, and 3C in three years? The answer is hopefully we get one in the upcoming draft, hopefully Kent Johnson is a center, and hopefully either Sillinger is just in a sophomore slump or hopefully Texier comes back and is a solid 3C. I used the word hopefully a lot to answer the most important question I see that the CBJ is facing.

 

[ThirdPeriodTurtle]

This "something else" business is getting ridiculous.

 

[Xoggz22]

Who are 1C, 2C, and 3C in three years? The answer is hopefully we get one in the upcoming draft, hopefully Kent Johnson is a center, and hopefully either Sillinger is just in a sophomore slump or hopefully Texier comes back and is a solid 3C. I used the word hopefully a lot to answer the most important question I see that the CBJ is facing.

I have high hopes that Voronkov can be a 3C within 2 years as well. I don't think Texier will become a C and, at this point, I don't count his as part of the team. I truly hope he comes back and can play as well as he did last year prior to injury but until he's here, he's not part of this team. I guess same is true of Voronkov but the likelihood of him being here seems much higher. To me, the biggest question around the Center position is whether KJ is truly going to become a center. He seems to have the skillset (aside from faceoff winning ability) but needs time and strength. That might happen within the next 2 years (3rd year in league). Drafting a 1C this year would be nice but will also need at least 2 years to be an impact player (aside from Bedard who probably is an impact player in year 2).

Again, my biggest concern is the goaltending. Second is Center. Third is the defense. While all might take a little more time, I feel very good about the prospect pool on the back end and moving a couple of prospects overall for a top 4 defenseman would be smart in my opinion.

Please hockey Gods... can we get conclusion to the defenseman trade market. This is maddening. We now have Dom Luszczyszyn writing buyer beware story with only a look at analytics.... yup, Gavy is the lead dog - and by dog I mean bad.

Deadline deep dive: Analyzing five players to avoid on the trade market

Five players to avoid at this year's trade deadline and what to expect out of each of them.

theathletic.com

 

[MissADD]

I have high hopes that Voronkov can be a 3C within 2 years as well. I don't think Texier will become a C and, at this point, I don't count his as part of the team. I truly hope he comes back and can play as well as he did last year prior to injury but until he's here, he's not part of this team. I guess same is true of Voronkov but the likelihood of him being here seems much higher. To me, the biggest question around the Center position is whether KJ is truly going to become a center. He seems to have the skillset (aside from faceoff winning ability) but needs time and strength. That might happen within the next 2 years (3rd year in league). Drafting a 1C this year would be nice but will also need at least 2 years to be an impact player (aside from Bedard who probably is an impact player in year 2).

Again, my biggest concern is the goaltending. Second is Center. Third is the defense. While all might take a little more time, I feel very good about the prospect pool on the back end and moving a couple of prospects overall for a top 4 defenseman would be smart in my opinion.

Please hockey Gods... can we get conclusion to the defenseman trade market. This is maddening. We now have Dom Luszczyszyn writing buyer beware story with only a look at analytics.... yup, Gavy is the lead dog - and by dog I mean bad.

Deadline deep dive: Analyzing five players to avoid on the trade market

Five players to avoid at this year's trade deadline and what to expect out of each of them.

theathletic.com

Makes sense. Analytics are the only thing that matters now,

 

[cbjthrowaway]

Werenski is signes and I'm not sure whether is good to have two similar players.

i think werenski would rather be a core player on a potential contender (i.e. one that also has chychrun) than being the only good defenseman on a bad team.

Werenski - Peeke
overpaid left D - Boqvist
Bean - Gudbranson
Blankenburg

and let Jiricek develop one more year in the AHL.

jiricek doesn't have much else to prove at the AHL level. imo something like this would be significantly stronger and still keep enough assets free to pursue a quality center:

werenski - jiricek
chychrun - boqvist
blankenburg - gudbranson
bean/whoever

you could basically deploy the top two pairs like they're both the #1 pair (22-24 minutes per night) and move blankenburg up for a few shifts here and there if boqvist and jiricek need a breather. lean really hard on having two all-star quality LHDs.

Please hockey Gods... can we get conclusion to the defenseman trade market. This is maddening. We now have Dom Luszczyszyn writing buyer beware story with only a look at analytics.... yup, Gavy is the lead dog - and by dog I mean bad.

funny how the analytics on gavrikov were really good actually under torts and are now really bad under larsen on a really, really bad team.

two deadlines ago, dom had brandon montour as one of the worst players in the entire league, saying he'd "likely struggle regardless of role" – now, on the panthers, dom's model has montour as one of the best defensemen in the league.

meanwhile, a film study of gavrikov shows that he consistently makes nice plays, but they end up not working out because his supporting cast is so bad.

the folly of guys like dom and jfresh is that they try to use limited public-sphere, results-focused data to distill a player's value into a single number, then take that number as gospel vis a vis who that player is, but in doing so they're misapplying statistics by failing to account for HUGE variables.

these models consistently overrate role players on good teams and paint a highly inaccurate picture of players who get huge minutes (particularly defensemen) on bad teams. montour is one example, but the model also had drew doughty as one of the worst defensemen in the league when the kings were bad, now they say he's good again.

 

[DarkandStormy]

Please hockey Gods... can we get conclusion to the defenseman trade market. This is maddening. We now have Dom Luszczyszyn writing buyer beware story with only a look at analytics.... yup, Gavy is the lead dog - and by dog I mean bad.

Deadline deep dive: Analyzing five players to avoid on the trade market

Five players to avoid at this year's trade deadline and what to expect out of each of them.

theathletic.com

Who's available?

Jakob Chychrun, maaaaaybe Erik Karlsson (but that's a whopper of a deal to figure out how to move), John Klingberg, maybe Jake McCabe (comes with term as well), Dmitry Kulikov, Shayne Gostisbehere, maybe Colton Parayko if the Blues really blow it up, Luke Schenn, Joel Edmunson, maybe Mattias Ekholm (comes with term) if the Predators start to sell, maybe Matt Dumba, maybe Kevin Shattenkirk.

There's a lot of "maybes" on that list, a lot of guys with term that would complicate things. Gavrikov has a very manageable cap hit (even more so if we retain salary) and is probably one of the 3 best Dmen who's actually available.

You can poo poo the analytics all you want, but compare it to who's available on the market.

 

[Fro]

Won't pay for Eklund...but interesting