Treliving should be on the line with CBJ. Suggestion .. Nick Robertson for Adam Boqvist.
October 10, 2023
The Columbus Blue Jackets are “engaged in trade dialogue with teams” about moving a defenseman off their NHL roster,
sources tell Daily Faceoff’s Frank Seravalli. Seravalli adds these talks are “likely centered” around one of
Jake Bean,
Adam Boqvist and
Andrew Peeke, but that general manager
Jarmo Kekalainen is likely to “move whomever they find gets them most back.” The team’s roster crunch on defense left a pair of young defenders expected to earn NHL jobs,
Nick Blankenburg and
David Jiricek,
off the team’s opening night roster yesterday.
This roster crunch didn’t come out of nowhere. After injuries depleted the Blue Jackets’ blueline depth for most of last season, Kekalainen acquired a pair of top-four defenders via trade back in June:
Ivan Provorov from the Flyers and
Damon Severson from the Devils. It would make sense, then, that both of those players are untouchables, as well as their top defenseman,
Zach Werenski. The seventh defenseman on the active roster,
Erik Gudbranson, carries a ten-team no-trade list and is locked into a rather unattractive $4MM cap hit through 2026.
That means the three defensemen Seravalli mentioned are the only realistic possibilities to get moved, and it’s hard to imagine Bean and Peeke would attract higher trade value than Boqvist. The 23-year-old right-shot defender was a core piece of the trade that sent
Seth Jones to the Blackhawks in 2021. While injuries have affected his time in Columbus, he looks well on his way to becoming an everyday top-four player.
www.tsn.ca
