Surveying Offseason Targets for the Armchair GMs
Offseason Market Examination
I spent the large part of this offseason working through some analysis on the Blue Jackets roster so that I could better understand what worked and what didn’t. While I didn’t get quite as deep as I’d like, mostly to put out draft content but partially because of lack of quality data, I think there are some clear trendlines.
Offseason Objectives
Improve Defensively
Maintain Flexibility for 2026-27 Offseason
Insulate Young Talent
Secondary Considerations
Playoff Experience
Puck Protection and Skills Inside Contact
Blue-line Entry Passing
Right Handed Shooter for Gaudreau (could be a center that lets Marchenko shift there)
Powerplay Faceoff Player
Insurance to move low quality veteran D
Roster Holes
High Minute RD (Preferably Penalty Killing)
Talented Offensive Wing (Preferably Right Handed)
Veteran Defensive C
Penalty Killing LD
Last time out, I ruminated on some of the potential roster holes that could be filled to begin the offseason ascent out of the basement of the NHL. It’s always nice to say what “should happen” in theory but it’s another entirely to take stock and determine what can happen in reality.
NHL teams and front offices will have access to higher quality data and information from other teams about potential availability. All we have is rumors from insiders and potential leaks and deductive reasoning. That still shouldn’t stop us from applying the information we have and trying to reach the best possible conclusions from the data available to us.
The purpose of these sorts of activities is mostly fun. I enjoy treating the roster like a puzzle and thinking about how potential skillsets might be available and how that might fit.
In putting myself into the shoes of a potential decision maker so that I might be able to understand the reasoning behind the moves they actually do make. I have the benefit of a more limited emotional attachment but my fandom still certainly brings me some of those same biases.
In it’s best form, this can help us spot blindspots or potential targets and better understand the values of the actual Blue Jackets front office.
To start understanding the moves that may be possible to make, I think it makes sense to start with the Salary Cap. This type of breakdown was more important during the stagnant-cap era but will also be important going forward. If there are competitive teams there will always be teams spending to the cap. Some better, some worse.
I’ve created a quite loose metric called “Cap Space Pinchedness” as a reflection of teams who are likely to need significant reduction in contract cost. Basically, I simply took the EvolvingHockey contract projections of expiring players on each team and added them to their currently available cap space.
Obviously, many of the teams are not even intending to sign many of those players, and I have tried to remove the more obvious “rentals” from the mix, but this can still give us an idea of who may be major players in significantly restructuring their roster.
The solution to the “cap pinches” for most teams will be to simply let the players go to free agency and populate the UFA pool. In Carolina and Vegas’ circumstance, certain players are very likely not to be signed. Anthony Mantha, Brady Skjei perhaps the most prominent but it’s possible that the teams would prefer to sign big UFA tickets like Jonathan Marchessault and Jake Guentzel.
For that reason, big cap hits like William Karlsson, Shea Theodore and Martin Necas may be on the block. They certainly won’t come cheap but Vegas and Carolina are going to have to do something.
I think this also goes to show you how much work Don Waddell has to clean up from Jarmo Kekelainen’s sloppy contract management. This does include signing Texier, Bean and Nylander to contracts where they could easily simply not be qualified. The Blue Jackets have some “moveable money” (Boqvist, Provorov, potentially Laine) but they have nowhere near the freedom of Utah or even Calgary at this point.
Similarly, and less objectively, there are also teams that might be desperate to make changes. While the cap-pinch is a more hard-line type of desperation there are also teams like Buffalo, Ottawa and maybe even Calgary or Seattle that might be looking to make moves to pull themselves out of the muck.
The Blue Jackets are perhaps in a similar situation so while those teams may make for theoretically good partners it’s hard to see what the Blue Jackets might have that they’d desire.
Pittsburgh and New York Islanders may be in search of retooling as they attempt to stay competitive. Otherwise, cap-pinchedness projects the teams who may want what the Blue Jackets can offer (cost controlled players).
So, the first objective is to find “Roster Hole” fillers who are on “cap-pinched” teams, survey the UFA market for the same “Roster Holes” and also keep in consideration players whose deals expire inside the two year window.
Defensive Centers
Ultimately, the Blue Jackets should be looking for a top six center. In my opinion, they should also be good defensively. If they aren’t, the Blue Jackets will likely rely on pairing young defensemen with Boone Jenner and/or Cole Sillinger. Not the worst options but not necessarily the most stable options either.
The primary criteria I’ll be using to determine the group is Evolving Hockey’s xGAR. As far as I can tell, this is the best public measure of defense. It’s broken up into even strength and short-handed metrics, both of which are worth considering (and especially so if Boone Jenner is on the move).
In order to populate the list, I will utilized xDef_GAR combined for the past three seasons. Filtered by position, though including some who are listed as hybrids, and sorted by ascending order. Then, I’ll eliminate all, players with less than 3 accumulate xDef_GAR. (Mark Scheifele had the worst total xDef_GAR over the past three years, for anyone curious).
I don’t really have a great reason but I’d assuming that if you haven’t found a way to get more than 1 xDef_GAR per season(or having been playing long enough), you’re probably not going to make a huge difference either way. At this point, we have 90 players.
From there, I’ll eliminate any players with less than 1 total xOff_WAR. This person may have to play up the lineup. We can probably be more picky than that but now we’re down to 55 players and that feels like a good position to start cleaning for availability.
Current top players or recent high draft picks (Connor McDavid, Auston Matthews, Roope Hintz, Jack Eichel, Quinton Byfield, Wyatt Johnston, Matty Beniers) were removed from the sample. After looking at the remaining C/W hybrids, I have decided to eliminate them as well. The Blue Jackets don’t need more ambiguity and I think we’ll see some of these wings later anyway.
The remaining sample is 25 players. We’ve eliminated some “diamond in the rough” finds by excluding players on bad teams for the duration. Perhaps a better analyst or scout could find some deeper hits but, at least for me, it’s probably not worth the risk in hoping from a savior from an also-bad team.
Sam Reinhart, Eetu Luostarinen, Evan Rodrigues and Ryan McLeod are all varying degrees of “not really centers” or not likely to hold a top line role. I think, in total, this chart shows how difficult it may be to get a high quality C from the market.
Best Fits
William Karlsson
Shane Pinto
Nicolas Roy
Vladislav Namestnikov
At first blush, William Karlsson is certainly the best and most flexible option. It would likely be painful to acquire him but if anyone would do it, it would be Vegas. Lower down Vegas’ lineup would be Nicolas Roy. If $5.9 million is too much for a 3C, you would think the same would go for Roy as a 4C.
Otherwise, Vladislav Namestnikov stands out as something of a last-effort solution. He was fine as a 2C with Cole Perfetti prior to their Sean Monahan acquisition.
Shane Pinto, though certainly not a veteran, has shown an ability to play up. Johnny Gaudreau recently played with him briefly at the World Championships but I don’t sense any desire for the Ottawa Senators to move on.
Anthony Cirelli and Mikael Backlund strike me as extremely unlikely, but it could be worth exploring them as potential options.
Off Book Options
Elias Lindholm
Sam Bennett
Ross Colton
Alexander Wennberg
Charlie Coyle
A reputationally excellent player, Elias Lindholm, may also be an option in Free Agency for the Blue Jackets. Though I would heavily advise against paying him any significant money, his chemistry with Gaudreau could be something worthwhile.
He’s also not included but I wonder if Sam Bennett may also be a cap casualty from the Florida Panthers. He’s an important part of their second line with Matthew Tkachuck and he might be a good fit for a forechecking style and have techniques to pass off onto Adam Fantilli. He isn’t exactly my favorite personality but the NHL is what it is.
For a similar reason, I believe Ross Colton may also be available from the Colorado Avalanche. They acquired him as insurance but may not have the cap space to carry him after acquiring and re-signing Casey Mittelstadt. His metrics aren’t fantastic, and Colorado may not mind paying him $4 million to be a 3C, but it would be worth a check.
As much as a reunion with Alexander Wennberg wouldn’t be particularly exciting, he is a talented defensive center with good playmaking instincts. He would, at the very least, provide a stable platform for Blue Jackets wings to create.
Charlie Coyle played above his pay-grade with the Boston Bruins and does have some trade protection. He’s right-handed and is otherwise solid. He’s got 2 years on his contract and could be worth a stab if the Bruins add someone better or want to make room for Matthew Poitras.
Talented Right Wing
The Blue Jackets need a more talented wing, mostly just to replace losing Patrik Laine. There are plenty of roles this wing could fill which makes developing a target list more difficult.
I think, at best, they are right handed and flexible, outside of the other considerations. Theoretically, there are a few roles that the Blue Jackets can try to fill:
A player that makes a Gaudreau-Fantilli combination easier to deploy
Right Handed
Puck Retriever
Defensively Mindful
The same player but for Kent Johnson-Adam Fantilli
Think Scott Hartnell for Wennberg/Dano or Jamie Benn for Johnston/Stankoven
A player who can play opposite Kent Johnson in general
if Boone Jenner is the C, someone with some pace and offensive talent (could be Gavin Brindley)
if Cole Sillinger is the C, probably more like the Fantilli/Gaudreau player but can be less talented
this player can be left-handed if Kent Johnson moves to the right (this would undermine flexibility to the top-line/with Gaudreau)
If I had more time, I think I’d put together a bigger breakdown using some microstats to fill the gaps between the potential winger combinations. Creating a sort of “Role Based Gamescore” would be a fun challenge. For now, I’m just going to have to fill in the gaps with my own knowledge of players.
There are two pages to this list.
To create it, I took at sum of the Evolving Hockey GAR data from the past 3 seasons. I utilized this over xGAR because I expect it to include some measure of finishing talent which could be valuable for wingers.
I cleaned the list of Centers, which unfortunately eliminated certain potential targets in Sam Reinhart, Martin Necas and Matt Duchene, though I would include them here as well.
I also cleaned the list of negative GAR players as well as certain players who look a lot like core players for their teams. That removed players like Mikko Rantanen, Nikita Kucherov and a few others.
I also cross-referenced that with CapFriendly’s targets expiring over the next three seasons. Ideally, the player fits within the two year window. Still, players who have an extra year may serve a purpose as well as bring context. It’s unlikely we get exactly what we want.
Expiry status indicates how many seasons until expiry. I probably could have been more clear there. 2 years is the duration of the “window” for the Blue Jackets but longer or shorter could equal more or less flexibility.
Certain players are more risky as they are UFA and likely want long contracts. In my mind that would be: Jake Debrusk, Teuvo Teravainen and Travis Konecny for a different sort of cost-risk.
Veteran Fits
Tyler Toffoli
Nino Niederreiter
Kyle Palmieri
Jonathan Marchessault
Cam Atkinson*
Matt Duchene
David Perron
I think there are some angles for the Blue Jackets to add certain UFA players, or via trade, of appropriate age level that can still help the team. The players featured here are above 30 and as such may not be seeking to maximize the term of their next/last contract.
Cam Atkinson feels like a perfect fit if this were 2020. His skillset, and handedness, perfectly fit a position across from Gaudreau/Johnson and Fantilli. Unfortunately, he looks like he’s losing quite a lot of his movement ability. If he’s willing to play down the lineup, he could be a valuable voice in the locker room.
Toffoli feels like the marginally younger, slightly less cooked Cam Atkinson. He’s responsible and a right handed shooter. A perfect low-touch volume, complementary shooter for a top line.
I am not sure Jonathan Marchessault fits with Fantilli specifically because both are so interior driven. That said, he does look a lot like what Gavin Brindley might in his prime and there was certainly a fit with Fantilli there.
Duchene, if he would be willing to reprise his role with the Blue Jackets, would be a fantastic fit with the Blue Jackets in my opinion. He might not be the add for a team trying to reenergize their locker room but his on-ice fit would be fantastic for a team looking to supplement their offensive capabilities.
He can win faceoffs and help on the powerplay, he knows how to orchestrate passing plays after entries, he can use his unassuming frame to protect pucks and he’s also a hockey-nerd. A great fit for a player who may not be signing a lengthy contract.
Palmieri and Perron are aging but have good pro-habits. They shouldn’t be looked as difference makers but perhaps they would be valuable pro voices in a locker room without many. Perron is especially good at using his body to create space on puck retrievals so perhaps the young players could steal a thing or two.
Best Fits
Alex Tuch
Oliver Bjorkstrand
Viktor Arvidsson
Martin Necas
Drake Batherson
Evan Rodrigues
Eetu Luostarinen
It’s perilously difficult to see Alex Tuch or Martin Necas moving to the Blue Jackets. Tuch looks like what Buffalo needs and as much as I love Necas, Carolina looks to be driving quite the high price.
Still, as talented right-handed playmakers that would slide plenty of lines into place alongside Gaudreau, Kent Johnson, Adam Fantilli or even next to Boone Jenner and Cole Sillinger.
The best fit, thought, is likely Oliver Bjorkstrand. He has nearly everything the Blue Jackets have been missing since…. well since he was last here. He’s an excellent exit-pressurer, he can generate zone exits and complete transitions. He’s great when he can be found in soft-ice (like where Gaudreau likes to playmake to) and he’s also found plenty of puck-protection techniques.
Furthermore, he really found his groove in the bumper on the powerplay. As of now, Kirill Marchenko is the only player who has shown any promise. It’s not guaranteed that Seattle would move him but perhaps they are thirsty for higher end potential.
Drake Batherson is a big right-handed playmaker. He’s not great defensively but he can play the netfront on the powerplay. Ottawa is likely to try to make some waves as they get back into the playoffs so I believe it’s reasonable he moves. If the Blue Jackets need someone to be right-handed, have a big body and deliver the puck in good spots, he’s not a bad option.
Viktor Arvidsson, I believe, would be a fantastic add. He’s been a huge part of a fantastic matchup line with Trevor Moore and Philip Danault in LA. He’s incredibly pacey and great at delivering pucks inside space. While he may not check all of the defensive boxes, and he is undersized and comes with some injury issues, he would be a fantastic offensive contributor in the middle-six.
I’ve added the Florida “centers” in here because I think they would be fantastic adds. They aren’t likely additions because of their highly efficient contracts but Florida is indeed pinched. I’d prefer Rodrigues because of his very good transition passing being a boost to Johnson, Gaudreau and Fantilli. Luostarinen is a fiendish forechecker and might not work up the lineup but he would certainly be a powerful force in the middle of the lineup.
Plan C
Anthony Duclair
James van Riemsdyk
Anthony Mantha
Jake Debrusk
Jason Zucker
Teuvo Teravainen
Jake Debrusk and Teuvo Teravainen would be fantastic additions from the on-ice perspective. Unfortunately, I don’t think they necessarily fit perfectly on the top-line. Additionally, they are “Plan C” because I believe they’ll be eager to sign longer-term contracts and are both left-handed.
Jason Zucker could be an excellent pro but is also likely a bottom six with injury flex to the second line potential.
James van Riemsdyk doesn’t seem to have much juice left. He still found a way to be unnaturally good at scoring close range goals for Boston so that sounds like a stylistic and potentially leadership fit. If we can’t add highly talented players, he’d be a good lower in the lineup mentor.
Anthony Mantha is a big body with theoretically good offensive impacts. He actually is quite poor defensively but he suppresses shots because he helps keep the puck in the offensive zone. That should fit with both Kent Johnson and Adam Fantilli. The downside is that he’s an inconsistent performer who may not have the work ethic to add to this specific room.
Anthony Duclair would be an rush-first offense producer that would certainly give Gaudreau and Johnson a player to creat with. Unfortunately, he’s left-handed and would likely just be an advanced Jack Roslovic.
Defense Targets
Defense is simultaneously easier and harder to create a list for. Really, we should be adding simply the best penalty-killing defensemen. The Blue Jackets were not a good penalty kill and they relied entirely on Provorov and Gudbranson. Werenski and Severson are fine and should be better but if either of the young D (Jiricek, Mateychuk) are to be added to the roster, the actual defending will need to be improved.
I would add a few more considerations to the list as well. Ideally, this new add can play next to Zach Werenski. It’s most likely that Damon Severson slides into that spot, especially if the Blue Jackets find David Jiricek a roster spot and still value Erik Gudbranson’s locker-room contributions.
If not, there are two clear candidates.
Some of my earliest work with A3Z and role fit was to determine what would make a good partner for Zach Werenski. Damon Severson did fit some of those roles but I think his poor fit otherwise also taught me that it isn’t the end of the road in terms of analysis (not that I necessarily though it was to begin with).
The primary characteristics of fit were neutral zone killing. This defensemen would be the Devon Toews, Mikey Anderson, Matthias Samuelsson for Zach Werenski.
After examining his game closely, especially his fit with Adam Boqvist, I think retrievals and puck moving are also important characteristics. This is what also makes Thomas Harley and Filip Hronek good partners for Miro Heiskanen and Quinn Hughes as well.
What his poor defensive fit with Boqvist and Severson taught me, is that the capacity to kill high danger passes and/or defend the net-front should also be a consideration. Unfortunately, without doing quite a lot of work to mine that information from the A3Z raw data, I don’t have a metric for that specifically.
Theoretically the Werenski fits are: Matt Dumba, John Marino, Sean Walker, Alexandre Carrier, Brett Pesce and maybe an extreme swing on young Vegas defenseman Kaeden Korczak.
This data is from the early season where Damon Severson looked like his NJ self. Later in the season, his neutral zone killing dropped off dramatically. This was likely and coaching/systems issue but could have been the result of his early turnovers or a poorly structured CBJ backcheck.
From a puck moving perspective Liljegren, Marino, Carrier show well. Chris Tanev makes an appearance as well.
Worth mentioning that these AllThreeZones vizzes pretty much only include 2023 data. With 2024 data, Werenski would grade out in a similar position to John Marino. It’s possible that other defenseman move up or down as well.
Marino grades out as one of the best transitional defenseman but has a similar weakness in defending the netfront as Werenski. He’s rumored to be available, which is the only reason I would add him.
Otherwise, Tanev and Carrier look like the premiere options. Tanev gives away neutral zone killing as he ages but makes up for it with pure defensive security. Carrier has stellar defensive metrics, neutral zone killing and moves the puck efficiently and securely. He may also struggle in terms of net-front defending but he’d be a no-doubt upgrade over Adam Boqvist.
There’s a second page for this one as well. I got this data by combining the past three seasons, as I have for the previous metrics. I sorted by SHD GAR and eliminating all of those who had negative SHD numbers. If anything, we need a single add who is a high quality penalty-killer.
I used GAR instead of xGAR because of the quality of public models’ data. There are plenty of factors, mostly passing and pre-shot movement, that make powerplay shots significantly more dangerous. Observed results take precedent.
After cleaning the data for negative Even-Strength and Short-Handed GAR players, we’re left with 50 or so defensemen.
I then cleaned away bona-fide top pair defensemen and those that wouldn’t move. This eliminated players like Kris Letang, Miro Heiskanen, Adam Fox, Victor Hedman, K’Andre Miller, Jonas Brodin, Brandon Carlo and the like. It’s entirely possible a trade could be swung but we’re going to focus on the potential 3rd pair adds.
Ideally, this player is also a left-handed defensemen but I’ve also left in the right handed players since a few are relevant for potential Werenski partner interests.
Many of the defensemen on the chart are hitting free agency and thus will be good targets for low-cost defensemen.
3rd Pair Left Targets
Ian Cole
TJ Brodie
Olli Maatta
Derek Forbort
Ryan Suter
Dylan Samberg
Oliver Ekman-Larsson
Ryan Lindgren
Not all of these targets are considered equal. TJ Brodie and Ryan Suter look like they are losing their legs. The same could be said of Oliver Ekman-Larsson though the Florida Panthers found some techniques to rejuvenate his abilities. He’s probably the worst at defending of the bunch but may bring some knowledge from Florida’s cup run.
Dylan Samberg is the youngest but he’s been a target for the past two seasons. It’s unlikely Winnipeg moves him unless he’s requested to leave. Winnipeg needs primarily puck-movers as their defensive defensemen (Demelo, Dillon, Samberg) are actually quite good.
Olli Maatta has some quite excellent defensive metrics. Upon checking deeper, they remain decent but it’s clear that he did so under quite sheltered conditions. If we are confident he’s a 1 year stop-gap, he could be worth consideration. What’s perplexing is that Steve Yzerman recently paid a 2nd to move on from Jake Walman’s contract who performed well under dreadful deployment and who would have just missed the cut.
The best, or perhaps easiest to acquire and lowest cost targets, remain Ian Cole and Derek Forbort. Both played 3rd pair roles, are veterans leaving playoff teams, and should be pretty good at defending the net-front. The only question is whether they’d be interesting in joining a basement Blue Jackets team.
Ryan Lindgren has been the long-time running mate of Norris defenseman Adam Fox. His performance hasn’t been quite as good as of late but the Rangers are pinched and might be desperate to make changes. I can’t imagine he’s the odd-man out in this situation but he would be worth the Blue Jackets checking in on. He’s an RFA this offseason.
Ryan Suter most recently filled this same sort of role with the Dallas Stars where he served as a veteran sounding board for Thomas Harley and Miro Heiskanen. His on-ice ability is well and truly cooked at this point and his refusal to play his off-side paints a player who may not be a positive locker room presence.
Right D Targets
Chris Tanev
Matt Roy
Alexandre Carrier
Sean Walker
Aaron Ekblad
Brett Pesce
Braden Schneider
Matt Dumba
These D targets are also not all treated equally. Chris Tanev, Matt Roy, Sean Walker and Brett Pesce would all be highly sought-after free agents. After their good performances on competitive teams, it’s difficult to imagine a circumstance where they sign for the right money and term in Columbus.
Aaron Ekblad can perhaps be thrown in the same category as Jacob Trouba. Both big, high-salaried and pedigreed defensemen who look to be dramatically losing their talent. It’s nearly impossible to imagine their teams moving on from them but if they are, I think the Blue Jackets should take notice. In my mind, these could be high-salary replacements for a locker room leader like Erik Gudbranson.
Alexandre Carrier feels like the perfect fit and his projected contract from Evolving Hockey is $4.3million for 3 years. He’s coming from Andrew Brunette’s high activation D system that isn’t far off from what the Blue Jackets deployed in the offensive zone last season.
Matt Dumba may be the next best fit. He isn’t the same defenseman he once was but he still has gas in the tank as a defensive defenseman who contributed well during Tampa’s first round exit (at least according to A3Z playoff tracking). He also strikes me as a vocal leader and quality person for a locker room that may need more of those.
If they can’t make it work, the Blue Jackets could also take the risk on the young Braden Schneider. As the season went along, he was given shutdown duty alongside K’Andre Miller. It’s hard to see the Blue Jackets going young given David Jiricek’s presence but you never know.
Other young targets could be Sean Behrens, Justin Barron, Kaeden Korczak or Connor Timmins(who is young-ish). If the Blue Jackets go young, I think it’s more likely for that acquisition to happen in the coming years.
None of this should discount Nick Blankenburg either. He isn’t a stable, veteran defenseman but he plays a style perfect for Zach Werenski. If he can put his injury troubles behind him(he didn’t play for the Cleveland Monsters during their playoff run after his NHL call-up), the Blue Jackets could have a low-cost in-house insurance option.