Where Patrik Laine fits in long-term remains to be seen. The star winger is an RFA this summer and obviously, the Blue Jackets hope to sign him to a long-term deal. If that’s not doable, then some decisions might have to be made there. But that can wait until then. It’s pretty clear that the Blue Jackets GM is none too pleased that trade rumors have surfaced regarding Laine ahead of March 21 because it sounds as though Kekalainen hasn’t brought up his name once to any of his GM colleagues, as far as I can tell.
“Yeah it bothers me because people make up shit, that’s what bothers me,’’ Kekalainen said. “I understand that sometimes from conversations you have (with teams) some of it may leak out, and a name gets in there, but this is not a case like that. This is just somebody making shit up from their own speculation of what we might do. They make it up and hope for the headlines and hope for the clicks. I think that’s unethical. And I don’t have any time for it.’’
As for Laine, we’ll see what happens this summer.
“I’ve said this before about Laine, we have no rush, we have his rights for this year and next year,’’ Kekalainen said. “When the time is right, we’re going to sit down and look at all the options together and see if we can come to a solution that he will stay for us for a term that fits the need of both sides and for the dollars that meet the needs of both sides.
“Let’s see if there’s a marriage that we can get into. And if not, you know, that’s hockey. I always say, every player that gets into the time frame when they can become (unrestricted) free agents, they can do that if they want to. And there’s not much we can do about it. The only thing we can do is sit down and talk about all the options and present what makes sense for us, listen to what makes sense for the other side and see if there’s a deal to be made.’’