After today’s signing of Patrik Laine, the Blue Jackets badly needed to create cap space. They’ve now done so, sending winger Oliver Bjorkstrand to the Seattle Kraken in exchange for a 2023 third-round pick and a 2023 fourth-round pick.
This trade is another example of just how difficult it is for teams trading established players to get large compensation packages in return. Bjorkstrand is a 27-year-old forward who just set career highs in production in 2021-22. Bjorkstrand scored 28 goals and 57 points in 80 games last year, which ranked second on the Blue Jackets behind Jakub Voracek. Bjorkstrand’s contract is $5.4MM for the next four seasons, taking him to his age-31 campaign.
That’s a reasonable, affordable cost for a player like Bjorkstrand, which is perhaps why he’s the player Columbus had to trade. The trade of Bjorkstrand indicates that the team may have found there was not much appetite for their other highly-priced forwards like Voracek and Gustav Nyquist, despite Nyquist and Voracek each being productive and having less term on their contracts than Bjorkstrand.
For Columbus, this is a deal fans won’t be celebrating, but it’s also one they’ll understand as the cost of doing business at the top of the free agent market. The Blue Jackets landed perhaps the most talented player in their franchise’s history, Johnny Gaudreau, on a major contract earlier this month. It’s likely that seeing Gaudreau light the lamp repeatedly in Columbus will ease the pain of losing a reasonably-priced top-six winger for just two mid-round picks.
For the Kraken, adding Bjorkstrand at such an affordable asset cost is another solid addition for a team desperate to improve on last season’s lackluster scoring attack. With Bjorkstrand in the fold and free agent signing Andre Burakovsky arriving from Colorado, Dave Hakstol will have no shortage of options for who he wants to flank his two highly-drafted young centers in Matty Beniers and Shane Wright.
That’s it
Cap dump. He was a minus 35 last season too. Not going to get much when a team knows you need to shed salary.
28 goals and 57 points. -37 on what was a mediocre team last year. Locked up long term decent price. That’s a low return for a top 6 winger
Worst defensive team in hockey last year.
His CF% rel was 11.9% and FF% rel was 11.5%. Imperfect stats conceptually as well. However, much more telling than the antequated counting stat that is plus/minus.
Kraken were the dog waiting under the table and they got a nice scrap.
They have assembled some decent wingers now, plus they have Tanev coming back and Gourde might be healthy this year…it’s actually rounding into a solid group.
McCann Beniers Eberle
Burakovsky Wright Bjorkstrand
Schwartz Gourde Tanev
Long way to go yet, but they will certainly be better than last year.
They were going to be anyway. The Kraken just had a ton of bad luck last year: key injuries, too many players regressing sharply from past consistent form. Reverting to the mean would’ve been an improvement, but with the additions it’s looking better.
Solid pickup by the Kraken just entering his prime years at a pretty friendly AAV around 5.6M per.
Holy s**t that’s one of the biggest fleecings in recent years. Talk about weaponizing cap space.
You just singlehandedly reduced the value and impact of the word fleecing. That said, funny post!
Probably the least cost (for Columbus) compared to the other teams with cap space wanted.
Seattle finally uses that cap space for good!
exactly what I was thinking
Nice pickup by Seattle. Not the player I thought Columbus would part with though. Bit of an ouch there.
This one hurts like hell. There weren’t really any good options, but most figured they’d move Gus Nyquist and pay someone to take him. I’d love to know what teams were asking for that, but here we are.
Seattle gets one of the best contracts in the league and a classy, good player in Bjorky. He will be missed badly in Columbus.
What?!?!
Do you disagree with something in there?