- The Blue Jackets announced that they’ve placed defenseman Adam Boqvist on injured reserve due to an upper-body injury. The injury was sustained back on Sunday against Pittsburgh and the placement was back-dated to that point. As a result, Boqvist could be activated as soon as Monday for their game against Toronto.
Blue Jackets Rumors
Alexandre Texier To Miss Several More Weeks
While Blue Jackets forward Alexandre Texier was originally expected to miss four weeks with a finger injury (a time period that has come and gone), Brian Hedger of the Columbus Dispatch reports (Twitter link) that the 22-year-old is still a few weeks away from returning. Texier is having the best season of his career so far with 11 goals and nine assists in 36 games but this injury will have taken away that momentum.
Texier has found his name in recent trade speculation with teams calling about him but the injury won’t help things on that front either. On that front, Hedger adds in a follow-up tweet that the team has no interest in moving him. He has long been viewed as a future building block for the Blue Jackets and since he has shown some promising signs in his development this season, it’s understandable that they’d want to keep him around.
Jake Christiansen Sent Back To Cleveland
- The Blue Jackets announced (Twitter link) that they’ve sent defenseman Jake Christiansen back to AHL Cleveland. The 22-year-old was recently brought up as extra depth with Zach Werenski injured although he didn’t see any NHL action on this recall. He has 26 points in 38 AHL contests this season.
Columbus Blue Jackets Taking Calls On Alexandre Texier
In the Eastern Conference, the playoff picture has looked set in stone for quite some time. Even now, with the Columbus Blue Jackets on an 8-2 run in their last ten, they’re still nine points behind the Boston Bruins for the last wild card position. That’s an impressive feat after struggling to find any consistency through the first half but it still might end up in a missed postseason, regardless of what they do in the coming weeks.
You can understand then, why teams may be calling the Blue Jackets to inquire about some of their players. Today, Frank Seravalli of Daily Faceoff reports that the team has been taking calls on Alexandre Texier for the last little while, though the asking price is still quite high. Seravalli notes that to pry Texier out of Columbus, it would take a first-round pick and a roster player.
Selected 45th overall in 2017, Texier is something of an enigma. After lighting up the Finnish league as a teenager, the French forward made the jump to North America and quickly forced his way into the Blue Jackets lineup. In 2019, he played in eight of the team’s ten playoff games at age-19, including the entire four-game sweep of the powerhouse Tampa Bay Lightning. In that deciding game four, Texier opened the scoring on the powerplay and added an empty-net goal to help seal it. He was still 19 at the time.
Since then, things haven’t gone quite as smoothly. Since the start of the 2019-20 season, Texier has ended up on injured reserve three times and has just 48 points in 121 games. There is so much obvious skill in his 6’1″ frame, but his play has been inconsistent even when he’s healthy enough to contribute.
This season, he has doubled his career goal total with 11 tallies in 36 games, but once again finds himself on the shelf due to injury. He has been out since January 26 with a broken finger, and even before that had been held scoreless in his last five games.
The key to any team’s interest in Texier–to go along with oodles of potential–is that he’s also signed for next season at a very reasonable $1.525MM cap hit. If you could add him to a talented lineup and keep him healthy, there’s a very good chance that the 22-year-old vastly outperforms that number. After this contract is finished, Texier will still be an arbitration-eligible restricted free agent, meaning it’s not anywhere near the kind of trade that will see rentals swap teams at the deadline.
Again though, the Blue Jackets are in no rush here. Just as they don’t have to make a decision about Patrik Laine until the offseason–the star sniper is a restricted free agent just one year away from the open market–they also won’t be pressured into a deal for the even-younger Texier. If the asking price is actually as high as Seravalli reports, Blue Jackets general manager Jarmo Kekalainen is making it very clear that he isn’t desperate to move the young forward.
Blue Jackets’ Daniil Tarasov Out For Remainder Of Season
Columbus Blue Jackets netminder Daniil Tarasov will miss the remainder of the season as he recovers from right hip surgery, the team announced today. Tarasov’s recovery timeline is six months.
The news isn’t entirely unexpected. Tarasov has been on the shelf for a little while now, last playing for the Blue Jackets on New Years’ Day after a three-game string in early December.
The 22-year-old, who was drafted 86th overall in 2017 by the team, had a strong showing this year, posting a .937 save percentage despite only being credited with two losses and no wins.
Columbus, for the time being, will need to continue to rely on NHL/AHL tweener veteran Jean-Francois Berube between the pipes. He’s recorded two wins in his past two starts, his first such victories in the NHL since 2018. Their NHL tandem in Elvis Merzlikins and Joonas Korpisalo are both day-to-day with lower-body injuries.
Tarasov should be ready to go for training camp for 2022-23 and stands a chance to win an NHL spot, especially considering Korpisalo’s pending unrestricted free agent status.
Blue Jackets Notes: Nash, Laine, Korpisalo
The Columbus Blue Jackets will be raising Rick Nash’s No. 61 to the rafters on March 5. Nash will become the first player in franchise history to have his jersey number retired and it will just happen to be when the Blue Jackets are facing the team he finished his career with. The Boston Bruins will be present for the ceremony, a team that Nash played just 23 games for before hanging up his skates in 2018.
The franchise leader in games played, goals, assists, and points, Nash is the first player that comes to mind when many picture the Columbus organization. He currently serves as the team’s director of player development and is involved heavily in the front office, as he continues on his post-playing career.
- If Nash was the most talented goal scorer in Columbus history, Patrik Laine might already be number two. The enigmatic forward has been on an absolute tear lately, including scoring two goals last night. One of those was another overtime winner, marking the sixth time he’s scored the game-winning goal this season. Through 31 games, Laine has 18 goals and 35 points, showing exactly why he was selected second overall in 2016. That outstanding play is coming at the perfect time for the 23-year-old Finn, who is set to become an arbitration-eligible restricted free agent in the offseason. Aaron Portzline of The Athletic recently asked Laine if he would be open to signing a long-term contract, to which he responded “of course” and that he likes everything about Columbus.
- The Blue Jackets have placed Joonas Kospisalo on injured reserve retroactive to February 15, meaning they’ll hit the road with Elvis Merzlikins, Jean-Francois Berube, and Jet Greaves. Berube was excellent again last night, stopping 39 of 42 shots from the Toronto Maple Leafs to earn his second win in as many games. This latest issue for Korpisalo only complicates his position as a trade deadline target, though likely not as much as his inconsistent play this season. The 27-year-old pending UFA has an .887 save percentage 18 appearances.
Columbus Blue Jackets Sign Jet Greaves
The Columbus Blue Jackets have signed Jet Greaves to a three-year entry-level contract, and will recall him to serve as backup for this evening’s game. Greaves will be behind Jean-Francois Berube, who gets his first NHL start in several years as both Joonas Korpisalo and Elvis Merzlikins deal with injury.
Greaves, 20, had been playing on a minor league contract, splitting the season between the Kalamazoo Wings and Cleveland Monsters. In the AHL, the undrafted goaltender put up a 4-6 record in 13 starts, posting an .898 save percentage. This is his first year of professional hockey after two years with the Barrie Colts, neither of which were all that exceptional. Suddenly he finds himself on the way to the NHL, with the Blue Jackets dealing with a depth issue at the position.
The only other goaltender that could have been recalled by the Blue Jackets is Cam Johnson, who is on a one-year, two-way deal himself. But Johnson has spent most of the year in the ECHL and actually played last night for Cleveland, allowing three goals on 18 shots. Given the lack of options, Greaves finds himself the beneficiary of a three-year deal that makes him an NHL goaltender, at least for the day.
The entry-level contract will keep him in the organization through 2023-24, not bad for a 6’0″ goaltender that has just 28 games of professional experience under his belt.
Blue Jackets Activate Danforth, Assign Fix-Wolansky To Cleveland
- The Blue Jackets announced that they have sent winger Trey Fix-Wolansky to Cleveland of the AHL to create a roster spot to activate winger Justin Danforth off IR. Fix-Wolansky had a goal and an assist in his first five games of NHL action despite averaging less than seven minutes a game. Danforth, meanwhile, had missed the last 19 games with a sprained MCL and has two goals and two assists in 13 games this season.
Trade Deadline Primer: Columbus Blue Jackets
With the All-Star break now behind us, the trade deadline looms large and is just over a month away. Where does each team stand and what moves should they be looking to make? We continue our look around the league with the Columbus Blue Jackets.
After missing the playoffs last season and moving out veterans Seth Jones and Cam Atkinson over the summer, it was obvious that Columbus was going in the direction of a rebuild. However, they’ve played better than many expected and have a points percentage over .500 and are the first team outside of a Wild Card spot as they sit nine points behind Boston heading into Friday’s action. Even with that in mind, it seems unlikely that GM Jarmo Kekalainen would part with future assets in an attempt to sneak into the final playoff spot but the season they’re having suggests they’re closer to battling for a consistent playoff position than it seemed back in October.
Record
24-23-1, 5th in the Metropolitan
Deadline Status
Seller
Deadline Cap Space
$29.248MM today, $51.915MM on deadline day, 0/3 retention slots used, 40/50 contracts used per CapFriendly.
Upcoming Draft Picks
2022: CHI 1st*, CBJ 1st, CBJ 2nd, TB 3rd, CBJ 4th, TOR 4th, TOR 6th, ANA 7th
2023: CBJ 1st, CBJ 2nd, CBJ 3rd, CBJ 4th, CBJ 5th, CBJ 6th, CBJ 7th
*-Chicago’s pick is top-two protected. If the Blackhawks wind up with the first or second selection in 2022, the pick will be conveyed unprotected in 2023.
Trade Chips
After a tough first year in Columbus, Max Domi was viewed as someone who would likely be moved at some point. Seattle decided to pass on him in expansion and in the end, that has worked out quite well for the Blue Jackets. The 26-year-old has rebounded nicely, notching 23 points in 38 games this season, providing them with some capable secondary scoring. He’s a pending unrestricted free agent with a $5.3MM AAV, a price tag they’ll almost certainly need to pay down to maximize their return but Domi would fit in on a few playoff-bound squads as a third liner that can move up if needed and also can play on the wing and down the middle. He won’t be the primary target for teams in the coming weeks but as the top options get moved, interest in him should pick up.
Joonas Korpisalo has had some good seasons in his seven-year NHL career but he started to struggle last season and unfortunately for them, it has carried over this year with the highest GAA of his career (3.82) and the lowest save percentage (.887). Those aren’t ideal numbers to have in the season before your first crack at unrestricted free agency as at this point, it seems unlikely he’ll surpass his current $2.8MM AAV. Despite his struggles, his track record is good enough for teams looking to add some goaltending depth for the stretch run but earlier reports had the Blue Jackets seeking multiple fairly high draft picks. That price will need to come down over the next few weeks.
While I have doubts Patrik Laine will be moved, his situation will be one to monitor. He’s having a nice season when he has been healthy and is averaging over a point per game. But he’s about to enter his final season of RFA eligibility and if he simply takes his $7.5MM qualifying offer again, he could hit the open market in July 2023. If the team senses Laine isn’t willing to sign a long-term deal, his name is bound to come up in trade speculation again. That’s a big price tag for any contender to add which is why I think such a move – if it was to happen – would make more sense in the summer. However, as the deadline gets closer, his name is bound to come up in the rumor mill.
Other Potential Trade Chips: D Scott Harrington ($1.633MM, UFA), D Dean Kukan ($1.65MM, UFA), F Kevin Stenlund ($1.05MM, RFA)
Team Needs
1) Defensive Depth: Columbus only has two defensemen on their NHL roster that are signed beyond the end of next season in Zach Werenski and Jake Bean. Players like Adam Boqvist and Andrew Peeke should be part of the longer-term picture but the depth starts to thin out after that. Another young core blueliner would be nice but even a capable short-term veteran will be needed at some point with Kukan and Harrington set to leave at the end of the season.
2) Draft Picks: Even though Columbus had three first-round picks last year, their prospect pool isn’t the deepest as the Blue Jackets had just eight selections in the previous two years combined, a ripple effect of the Blue Jackets making their push two seasons ago. Simply restocking the pipeline is something they need to do.
Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images.
Korpisalo Out Day-To-Day With Lower-Body Injury
- When the Columbus Blue Jackets recalled Jean-Francois Berube under emergency conditions, alarm bells went up for some fans as it wasn’t clear what had happened to their normal goaltenders. Brian Hedger of the Columbus Dispatch reports that Joonas Korpisalo is considered day-to-day with a lower-body injury. That’s something to keep an eye on as the trade deadline approaches given Korpisalo’s status as a potential rental, though his play this season has obviously had a bigger impact on his value than any minor injury. In 18 appearances, Korpisalo has an .887 save percentage and hasn’t seen game action since January.