Some Finishing Options for the Remainder of the Offseason

Here He Goes Ranting about Provorov Again…

Don Waddell’s offseason has been completely uninspiring so far. More time to sit with the decisions hasn’t really changed my opinion of them but it, along with some investigation, has perhaps yielded a bit more clarity.

I think it’s any analysts prerogative to understand the “why” behind any collective’s decision making, especially an NHL front office, when coming from a perspective with limited information. This front office has a bunch of very smart people but that doesn’t mean they get it right. It also doesn’t mean that their smart work is being utilized or that there shouldn’t be divergent opinions.

What’s the throughline for Waddell’s decision making up to this point? What makes him going long on Provorov and Olivier (and extending Zach Aston-Reese and Jake Christiansen early) make sense while also being overly cautious about Johnson, Marchenko and Voronkov (and willing to pull the plug on Jiricek and Brindley)? We’re still working with the bulk of decisions

He’s reportedly talking with Adam Fantilli already which might point to a different answer than the previous lot of his but might also be influenced by the continual short term deals with the rest of the team.

The problem, at least how I see it, is that Don Waddell seems completely averse to risk. His roster management feels like he’s hoping to walk his way into a sprint. He hasn’t yet taken a risk with upside only ones that have minimal downside (assuming we don’t view opportunity cost as a downside).

Provorov and Olivier are going to play in the NHL. They’ve got clearly defined roles too. Do they push the team toward winning in those roles? No, not really. But you’re not quite as worried about digging a hole the same way that Buffalo did with say Dylan Cozens. The floor of their value is established and though Olivier could perform much worse, he’s only paid $3 million.

To that effect, it appears that Waddell is chained to identity and roles and not to performance. Provorov was constantly listed as “probably the best defensive defenseman on the team” and “played too big of a role to remove” a the trade deadline. That’s really the crux of it. He wasn’t paid for how he performed, he was paid because of what was asked of him.

Being the best defensive defenseman on a team that conceded the 8th most goals against and the 9th most Expected Goals Against isn’t a particularly inspiring commendation. Does it mean he’s the first player to look for improvement? No, but it also doesn’t mean he should be locked up long term at all costs. (He’s played on better teams with good players and still hasn’t looked that much different under the hood).

It’s easy to say be confident and have a walk away number but I don’t think it takes much to see that K’Andre Miller, system fit and excellent skating defenseman, is younger better and costs less and Vladislav Gavrikov. Even Nate Schmidt, who rushed an extremely sheltered role on a very good Panthers team, got a more palatable contract. Would he have been as good if he was playing 23 minutes a game? No, but it seems like Waddell believes in Mateychuk anyway, so why not help out the primary contention window?

I think Waddell’s approach is fundamentally incorrect, though the short term deals for Johnson and Marchenko were more acceptable at the time than Voronkov’s (Waddell and Evason pigeon-holed themselves with public comments about his conditioning), but something will have to give shortly.

Don Waddell is burning advantages with his youth and locking in old players to term (old players without winning pedigree or “under-the-hood” bona fides either). If the team is going to need to be “re-tooled” shortly, which is an approach that has been necessary, why is it that the young players are positioned as the ammunition for that and not the aging mediocre veteran class?

Previously, I assumed that the point of going slow on Marchenko, Johnson, etc was to keep a clean cap sheet for the “real window”. If you notice, Carolina also had a slow approach and consistently “hit singles” on the way to an incredibly efficient cap sheet. I presumed that approach was continuing. With Gaudreau, it also made sense to keep those players low to the floor in hopes of spending to the cap. It also makes paying to move Laine make some sense though still dubious process.

Now, the Blue Jackets have overperformed and Waddell must be concluding that the window to win is now. Young players are still not given big contracts. Ivan Provorov and Mathieu Olivier, however, at the fading end of their primes don’t really look like clean money on the cap sheet. Which means the optimal time to make use of these contracts is the short term.

Perhaps that was just the risk that had to be taken in a changing environment (not betting on his ability to find a replacement at the cap hit). Perhaps this moment on the upswing was critical and not worth taking a step back (different from Waddell’s previous decisions to re-tool and not re-sign Brady Skjei).

For a team that will only succeed if the young players grow tremendously, a team that just made long-term focused picks, it’s a curious approach. I assume Don Waddell thinks the money will “get good” to the young players and undermine their desire to improve. I would wager that these players aren’t built that way.

Provorov vs Cap Forecasting

In the coming years, where each year contracts are likely to get more expensive as teams get more desperate to use their unspent cap, moving on from bad deals will only be easier. Think of it this way, this past offseason there were basically no UFAs, right? Partially because all teams with expiring players had new cap space they could sign their players with. Next offseason, the same force will be in effect.

Maybe some players leave and decide to start changing the market, huge potential for it given Eichel and Kaprizov are eligible to hit the market, but that didn’t happen last year because Florida, Vegas and Carolina suppressed wages with team-friendly (re)signings. The NHL is different from the NBA, players are much more likely to maintain status quo than they are rock the boat.

Mitch Marner wasn’t overpaid despite changing teams, neither were Bennett or Ekblad (debatably) or even Ehlers. I think Gavrikov was technically overpaid but that’s only because I think he’ll settle more into a shutdown defenseman role (which isn’t highly paid if you look at Slavin and Forsling) than the top pairing D he played like last year. That’s more of an evaluation difference than a market difference. Noah Dobson didn’t get overpaid and he signed with Montreal.

In any case, next year we’ll have teams like San Jose or Chicago or maybe even the Columbus Blue Jackets who will have spent a third or more year not close to the cap. They’ll have money to burn and it will literally be logical for them to”overpay” to get the talent. If you know you won’t be able to reach the cap ceiling for a few years, what’s $2 million AAV “extra” to you?

Each year a cap-rich team can’t find someone to join their team, the dollar amount it’s wise for them to spend to get talent explodes. They’ll be more and more impatient and more and more desperate to win. The league, as a whole, won’t need to be efficient with contracts because the league won’t be able to spend to the limit in a small window.

There’s a ton of cap space currently available in the NHL (rough math of $234m AAV currently unspent) and only some Arbitration Eligible RFAs and Jack Roslovic going to get a salient chunk of it. I don’t know if contract values are going to rubber-band or what other market effects may come but the “sticker shock” only really happened for Ivan Provorov and Jakob Chychrun.

If there’s any evidence in the immediate valuation change of contract dollar amounts vs player ability (in terms of asset value on the trade market), there’s ample evidence even this offseason. There are no such things as negative value contracts if the player is positive value (or above replacement). I project that this will only get more true. Eventually, the market will stabilize and we can get back to talking about cap efficiency but it might not be in the short term future.

Colorado literally refused to move Charlie Coyle, a technically inefficient contract, without attaching Miles Wood and they got paid for it. Same goes for Evander Kane or literally any of these “cap dumps” that returned assets (Kreider, Trouba).

The risk of having bad contracts in the coming years is heavily mitigated by the potential to move on from them more easily. Maybe that should count as a mark in Provorov’s favor but he has 2 years of No-Move protection and a further 3 of Full No-Trade protection.

Any upside of Provorov’s above replacement play and therefore “non-negative overpay” was mitigated by Don Waddell ceding value on these margins. Normally, trade protection results in a decreased dollar amount. Curious then, that Provorov was decidedly overpaid relative to the market and also has trade protection. The Blue Jackets, given Waddell’s approach, should have been better positioned to take the actual money hit, no?

I hope, going forward, Waddell finds a little more appetite for risk in his young players. There aren’t many left to try to take risks for, and I wouldn’t necessarily do that with Cole Sillinger or Yegor Chinkhov, but perhaps Fantilli’s extension or Mateychuk’s are great opportunities to create enough forward looking value.

The roster, at this point, is what it is. I assume Don Waddell is still working for moves. The insiders, as they have all season, have continually played up potential incoming action. They’ve been wrong for two seasons now but maybe this time they won’t be. So lets turn our attention to some Don Waddell comments, desires and the current roster to see what opportunities for improvement the Blue Jackets have.

Optimizing Current Roster with Analytics

Don Waddell has made some moves and the on-ice impact of those moves must be taken seriously. Largely, they’re pretty decent targets especially given their peripheral nature. I don’t like Miles Wood and it still astounds me that he was included but I suppose I see the angle.

Now, I’ll look towards the roster depth chart as it stands, and analyze deployment trends/roles and what that could mean for optimal arrangement of the depth chart. We’ll do this so we can examine what targets still available might make sense for the Blue Jackets.

We won’t yield anything that I haven’t already said, with respect to role fits, given the work done between the end of the season and the end of free agency but it’s an important procedure given the roster dynamics have (slightly) changed.

Isac Lundestrom

I’ll start with the most recent free agent signing because I haven’t done any work on him yet. He actually has a really interesting profile. Normally, I don’t spend much time on fourth line signings because they are about as irrelevant to NHL success as you can get. Ideally, this line should be filled with failed risks or NHL minimum deals but there’s at least an angle to talk about before I get into full line optimization.

Is Isac Lundestrom good? No. Does he do some specific things that mean he has a role and those things could be components of a whole? Yes but then Maybe. He grades out as a fourth line NHLer, which is perfectly acceptable for the Blue Jackets. What’s interesting is that he looks excellent defensively while offering next to nothing offensively.

Increasingly, I’m moving away from thinking about hockey as offense vs defense, the game is too interconnected to really think of them as separate things in total but there’s not no-information in the disparate abilities either. That he gives back all of his offense is absolutely not a good thing but there’s at least a cornerstone idea to work with. Perhaps he does too many bad things in the offensive zone that explain why he’ll never work but he did play on the Ducks under Greg Cronin.

In this role on the Ducks, he played as a sort of matchup fourth liner. We should be familiar with this role as it looks a lot like Kuraly under Brad Larsen. He played with bottom of the lineup teammates against top of the lineup opposition. That he graded out well defensively could simply have been role asks and little to do with his actual skillset but perhaps this is a role that could help the Blue Jackets. Evason deployed his fourth line like an actual fourth line and a matchup line (early with KJ and Sillinger and later with ZAR-Danforth-Olivier) like Lundestrom was deployed with Anaheim.

If you remember, some of my major criticism of that “identity line” was that it struggled to safely exit the zone. That’s a huge issue for Dean Evason’s system especially considering he’s not asking for difficult in-possession plays either. It undermined their ability to do their job effectively, though Danforth and Olivier did find some net-front jamming prowess that yielded big goals in big moments.

I mention this partially because by AllThreeZones stats, Lundestrom is a player who helps get his team out of the zone often! Theoretically, that’s a great fit to help address some of the concerns with the “Identity Line”.

Are these rate stats affected by his unusual deployment? I’d guess probably. He got some wicked defensive zone starts and played with some bad linemates. That explains some of the lack of offensive creation but it might explain the zone exit rates as well. He may simply have had more opportunity to exit the zone than the average NHLer which, in and of itself, isn’t a good thing.

The question to examine, then, is whether or not Lundestrom was doing a good job relative to his environment or if he’s responsible for an inability to keep the puck away from his zone.

Either way, there is indeed some breakout potential (pun not intended but I’ll stand by it).

Last season, he graded out as one of the worst NHLers from an “analytics” perspective. Not unlike CBJ centers in Cole Sillinger, who graded out worse, and Sean Kuraly, who graded out mildly better. If used differently, it’s possible that he’s better than that. Better enough to elevate to more than a fourth line? Probably not. Which brings me to the perhaps more interesting and/or positive part of the analysis.

Louis Boulet is publishing some of the most interesting and innovative analytics available in the public sphere, limited only by limitations present in AllThreeZones (not adjusted for usage, limited sample size, etc etc). You’ve probably seen tidbits or off-hand remarks, or moreso the Passing Importance criteria, but now I’ll deploy it to their fullest optimization.

The most interesting aspect of the acquisition of Lundestrom is actually that he is the most ideal player to put between Mathieu Olivier and Miles Wood. Assuming that Wood was a necessary evil in acquiring Coyle, which I roll my eyes at, Lundestrom is an interesting emergent find for an identity fourth line.

Lundestrom’s experience handling outrageous deployment might mean that this line can function a bit better as the “identity” matchup line that Evason loved to deploy with ZAR and Danforth. We know he loves Olivier in that role so Lundestrom might be the best way to complement both Olivier’s skillset and Evason’s desire to play him in difficult minutes.

Whether or not it’s a good thing that the fourth line will play up relative to last year remains to be seen. I, personally, loved JvR-Kuraly-Labanc as a line that could generate some offense and think that’s largely a better way to play the fourth line (and I imagine highly skilled offensive players will become the type that are easy to continually find at league minimum as the league moves toward “Florida style”) but none of that will matter when the team isn’t a contender.

Still, the implications of a defensive fourth line might be that Evason can deploy a third line that doesn’t have to eat crazy minutes which might mean certain players like Cole Sillinger or Dmitri Voronkov can be put in better situations for their skillset (though if Voronkov gets “in shape” I can’t see a way he’s out of the top six).

Charlie Coyle

I’ve already touched on his potential chemistry but I dug deeper into some of his data to see some trends that I think are pertinent.

First, I want to hearken back to Waddell’s desire to get a Right Handed Center specifically for faceoff purposes. This is important, partially because every center is better on their strong side. It’s sticky, to me, because I think Monahan and Jenner are both good enough at winning faceoffs that you’re not overly worried about it. Maybe you’re worried about Monahan’s wrist, I can’t be sure.

There are a ton of interaction possibilities but the players who need the most help with faceoffs are Fantilli and Sillinger. From a theoretical perspective, Coyle might fit as a faceoff helper and play connector with Johnson and Fantilli.

The chemistry is alright. The ideal fit between Fantilli and Johnson would be Anders Lee a net-front player who shares a ton of symmetry with James van Riemsdyk and perhaps Dmitri Voronkov.

I can see angles for these skillsets to work. Coyle helps them get out of the zone, is a decent enough playmaker and has experience playing against top competition. Having better faceoff wins helps buy Fantilli and Johnson more d-zone starts or even o-zone faceoff wins.

He isn’t, at least as far as the data suggests, a dominant net-front player which is something that KJ and Fantilli could really use. Maybe that’s in his bag, I’d have to watch more tape to find out.

I would advise against including him in the top six, however, for good reasons. Historically, Coyle has been an inconsistent player with pops of good second line performances. He played well at critical times in 2018-19, when Evason would have crossed paths with him, upon arrival in Boston and against in 22-23 but was bad outside of it. He was better in Colorado after being traded than he was in Boston before the deadline though he did ultimately lose playtime as the playoffs wore on.

His most common teammates when he was playing well: Jordan Greenway, Joel Eriksson-Ek, Trent Frederic and Taylor Hall, Ross Colton and Joel Kiviranta.

In the years he looks like a fourth line center: Craig Smith, Trent Frederic, Jake Debrusk, Brad Marchand and David Pastrnak, Koivu and Parise.

I’m not sure he plays as well as a complementary player to elite talent as he does as a component of a matchup line or with depth oriented players. To me, that means placing him next to Kent Johnson and Adam Fantilli would be suboptimal though they certainly aren’t elite talent quite yet.

It’s a long season and line experimentation is critical for a team that isn’t at the apex of its competitive trajectory, so it’s not worth assuming he can’t play on a second line with Johnson and Fantilli. It is, however, important to consider if we’re still looking to improve the roster.

When looking at Coyle specifically, it’s perhaps interesting that he grades out so similarly to Kirill Marchenko. Maybe the Coyle acquisition opens more options than I’m lead to believe. Leaning into Fantilli-Marchenko as a pair could mean Monahan can be deployed alongside Coyle at the same time.

Why I post this here is because interestingly, Yegor Chinakhov grades out well as an ideal linemate which is something I would be highly interested in testing. Jenner-Coyle-Chinakhov sounds like a great matchup line for this young team.

Unfortunately, barring no changes, that means Voronkov and Sillinger fill out the rest of the top six which I have a hard time seeing. As of last season, I think Sillinger was too volatile to play with skilled players or against them.

Frankly, I think it’s more likely we see Jenner slot next to either Monahan-Marchenko or Fantilli-Johnson than it is anything else. I don’t like it because of Jenner’s playstyle warping but Jenner’s net-front play isn’t a poor fit despite his in-possession volatility.

What’s most interesting is how Kent Johnson is the perfect complement for a combination of Jenner and Coyle. While I don’t love putting the young star on a matchup third line, and wonder how Waddell or Evason surround Fantilli with talent if this is true, I think there’s plenty for Johnson to learn from this type of deployment.

In any case, this isn’t entirely the point. Coyle could serve as a Swiss-Army knife for Dean Evason to help tinker around the lineup. He worked best away from superstars and didn’t exactly endear himself to Colorado either, so the ultimate impact is yet to be seen.

I think his overall acquisition leaves a lot to be desired, especially considering the cost and baggage attached, but it’s interesting how he fits inside the lineup. These types of “efficient” or “well-aligned” bottom six additions (in Coyle, Wood, Lundestrom) read more like a team that isn’t necessarily trying to take dramatic steps forward.

If Don Waddell thinks the top six is already set, that means it’s some form of Voronkov, Jenner, Monahan, Marchenko, Fantilli and Johnson and expects them to grow forward.

That doesn’t jive exactly with Voronkov being dangled as a piece but I suppose that brings me to the next point. In the above section I mentioned a bunch of moving parts and a bunch of strange fits. The left wing position, assuming we categorize Marchenko and Johnson as the right wings, doesn’t feel particularly good.

I think Chinakhov finding his place where he started last season is certainly the best case scenario. The injury troubles were unfortunate, and I don’t love the way he plays offense, but his vertical forechecking threat and wall recovery work took a dramatic leap. If he can find a season of full health, he could be part of a very interesting top line for the Blue Jackets.

That would leave Johnson and Fantilli to reprise their short-lived line with Voronkov. It grades out as a third line but with tremendous improvement potential from Fantilli and Voronkov both it’s easy to see the potential for something more. The line looked great in a small sample against Utah and it allows the Blue Jackets to put their young players in roles where they will be asked to provide offense.

This leaves Jenner, Coyle and Sillinger for the third line and the already established Wood-Lundestrom-Olivier line for the fourth. I think those work for me.

The reason I have a hard time with this ideal deployment is that it very much seems like Voronkov and Chinakhov are the most likely players to move and it’s hard for me to consider Evason moving Jenner down the lineup.

I don’t see the team moving Chinakhov up to the first line readily, I also think Wood and Lundestrom are probably skillset options to replace what Chinakhov might bring to a third line, and I don’t like him that much with Fantilli and Johnson at the same time.

The roster is a puzzle that doesn’t ever have to be solved but the pieces certainly feel like they’re not quite arrange-able perfectly at the moment. That’s okay, especially if the Blue Jackets can get better seasons and increased value from Sillinger, Voronkov and/or Chinakhov, at a time when actual NHL roster assets come at tremendous value.

I’ve long been critical of Cole Sillinger, but if the Blue Jackets can keep him and hope that he becomes a teams’ answer for the 2C hole he might have astronomical value. If the Blue Jackets can create a Jenner-Coyle-Sillinger line, they should be well positioned to compete now and perhaps even a bit into the future. Any offseason acquisitions that can help make that happen can salvage some value.

Options for Remaining Holes

To me, it feels like this poor puzzle fit means there’s still space for a top six addition. There aren’t that many perfect additions around the league. Waddell professed for a desire for players with “stature” or “physicality” saying that the Blue Jackets’ top players don’t have much of it but the rumored targets so far haven’t exactly aligned with those specific asks.

Matthew Knies, perhaps the hottest player given the Sam Bennett of it all, re-signed eagerly. Nicolas Roy, also in Toronto, similarly wasn’t acquirable because of Vegas being extorted. Josh Doan moved in a big trade to Buffalo. Perhaps Will Cuylle was the guy to target but the New York Rangers moved K’Andre Miller and Chris Kreider and had no issues getting under the cap.

I don’t see many players who can add physicality to the top six in short order so I’ll move to other potential additions. Given the way the market has shaken out, none of these options will come cheap, I imagine. Finding teams who may be suitors for one or more of Voronkov, Chinakhov and Sillinger is perhaps the best play.

The common players mentioned most by “insiders” are:

• Jordan Kyrou

• Troy Terry

• Jason Robertson

• Marco Rossi

They each are, frankly, fantastic additions for the Blue Jackets. For some of them, I worry about their role on the team being somewhat sub-optimal. The Blue Jackets have a kind of full PP1 and you don’t want to get big money offensive players without a good space for them to build confidence with the man advantage.

Mostly, this applies to Kyrou or Terry, both of whom are right handed, dual-threat rush attackers and both could play PP1 but might eclipse or be eclipsed by Kent Johnson in the long run. I think Kyrou could form an eye-watering pace combination with Adam Fantilli and Terry is really just the rush version of Kirill Marchenko. A very high level stick handler who leverages it for takeaways as well. Both excellent and cost-effective additions especially considering they are already signed.

I don’t understand why Anaheim would move Terry, he was literally their best forward last year, and while I understand why St. Louis would move Kyrou, I remain skeptical in their desire. I assume both will be prohibitively expensive. I’d guess that Voronkov would be a major part of the package but I don’t see how that moves CBJ toward a Florida style team while losing Voronkov and JvR.

I’ve been far down the Jason Robertson road already and would wholeheartedly endorse doing what it takes to get him, should the Dallas Stars move on. The rumors have suggested it’s a future looking package but I believe the Blue Jackets, should they offer Kirill Marchenko or Kent Johnson, would be as competitive as any other team could be.

The powerplay might need to be tinkered a bit but it isn’t often players this good are made available. Maybe there’s more wiggle room with contracts and value and Dallas would even bet on reclaiming Damon Severson’s game (he’d probably work very well with nearly all of their left handed defensemen for different reasons). The Blue Jackets would have to eat more cap, likely one or both of Dumba and Lyubushkin.

Marco Rossi is reportedly extremely anti-Minnesota Wild. He believes he’s earned a larger contract through their internal structure (akin to Matt Boldy) but they want to bridge him because they aren’t sold yet. His problem with that is that they tossed him down to the fourth line so why would he trust they’ll put him in a situation where he can truly earn a bigger extension?

His ask is reportedly $7m x 7. The problem with him is, as far as anyone can tell, that he’s 5’9”. That, really, is the problem for the Blue Jackets too. Don Waddell wants to get bigger and he wants to get more physical. Rossi isn’t really either of those but I would say he isn’t really a slouch with physicality either. He’s fearless and quite good at playing near the net.

Rossi, at first blush, isn’t a perfect fit. The Blue Jackets are set with their top two centers in Sean Monahan and Adam Fantilli. On that account, I agree. On another account, you can always just have more good centers. If Fantilli and Rossi are that good, perhaps Monahan is an excellent fill-in at wing or even a matchup center with appropriate wings.

On the other hand, just don’t overthink it and play Rossi at wing. Signing him to a $7x7 is still a huge value contract for a wing who might not find PP1 time should he continue his forward growth. CBJ don’t have Kirill Kaprizov to play him with (yet) but they’ve got good fits too.

When I was thinking about this exercise, it was in putting Rossi next to Monahan and Marchenko. Frankly, it feels like a near ideal fit. He doesn’t have the top skating speed of Chinakhov, but he’s got vision, tenacity and playmaking and there’s no reason he wouldn’t work. When working through the line-builder tool, I found something even better.

Marco Rossi is a perfect chemistry slot next to Marchenko and Fantilli. That’s highly intriguing. It could even help slot Kent Johnson with Sean Monahan and maybe make Boone Jenner in the top six make sense at the same time. I think there’s room to believe that Rossi and Fantilli might step on eachothers’ toes, or that an idealized Fantilli would eclipse Rossi, but good players usually figure it out.

There are plenty of options, all of which I think are worth exploring, with Marco Rossi’s addition to the roster. It’s certainly possible that you’re taking a big risk in signing a long-term contract for a small player. I think Rossi would be fine signing a shorter contract with a different team, especially one that doesn’t have the instincts to bury him on the fourth line. Would the Blue Jackets be wise to have yet another short term deal? No, but if he’s still an RFA at the end of it, I’d rather take that risk and trade him again because of a cap crunch than stay pat with the team as-is.

Alexis Lafreniere is a player who I mention partially because he’s a long-term signed contract with a high pedigree and a reportedly impatient or sour front office. He stood out to me on tape partially because of his defensive stick work and I think largely that means he could be a top shelf addition to a Monahan-Marchenko line.

What I didn’t expect was for Kirill Marchenko to be listed as an ideal linemate for him. He is listed as such partially because of his transition dominance and partially because of his excellent passing and shooting metrics.

I do think that some of those metrics are products of a distorted environment alongside Artemi Panarin and within the New York Rangers. Still, I think there’s plenty of room for Lafreniere to be a different type of wing altogether or to bring those on his own. He’s a brilliant stickhandler with great vision and while he was an excellent rush sidekick alongside Panarin, I believe he can help drive the bus in more forechecking/takeaway oriented Evason system as well. Maybe he’s too similar to Kent Johnson but his well-roundedness and strength were still features in his draft season as well.

I assume, given the Rangers’ new coach and otherwise re-tinkering of the roster already underway, they have little reason to move Lafrieniere. Panarin is on the last year of his contract and it’s difficult to see the team moving on from a young and cost controlled player. Chris Drury has to be seeing the same things as I do, though I guess you’d say the same with K’Andre Miller.

Arbitration RFAs

Certain players filed for arbitration this week which means many of them are ineligible for offer sheets. Most of these players won’t actually reach arbitration but a few of them are worth mentioning. Usually, it’s players putting a deadline on GMs decision making (Don Waddell was a big fan of taking all of his time and expressing that deadlines usually make deals). If a player goes to arbitration, it’s usually a bad sign for the relationship of that team and player. Most are traded away from their team eventually.

The important ones, specifically, are Dylan Samberg and Gabe Vilardi. I probably shouldn’t mention Samberg considering Provorov’s anchor in that position, but Samberg is one of the few defensemen who are confidently NHL shutdown quality. If his relationship with Winnipeg is frayed, the Blue Jackets could profit shortly.

Gabe Vilardi is one of the last true difference makers available who would be a perfect fit. Frankly, I wondered if Dmitri Voronkov would be dangled in a bit to get him from Winnipeg.

Vilardi is a sublime net-front player with excellent puck moving skills and even better small space playmaking. He’s really the idealized version of James van Riemsdyk and would be an absolutely perfect fit to place next to Adam Fantilli and Kent Johnson (who graded out as a Casey Mittelstadt comp this past season). He would be an instant boon to the top powerplay unit as well.

He doesn’t have many years before UFA so perhaps he’s someone to still keep an eye on regardless of arbitration outcome.

His analytics don’t grade as well as you’d hope, and perhaps that’s why the salary might be contentious, but I’d wager that Scheifele and Connor created a unique environment that are difficult to extact solid data from. The Jets are in a strange position roster wise, so maybe an appropriate futures oriented offer could poach a player outside their core.

Kaapo Kakko, though he is left-handed, also looks like a good option to add a wall-play dimension to the Blue Jackets. He’s not that far from a Vilardi type but is much more focused on getting pucks off the wall than he is purely a net-front dominator. He’d be an excellent add to the Blue Jackets and may be well positioned to grow into a better game over time. At times with the Rangers, he was a great zone-exit generator on their matchup line with Cuylle and Chytil.

A couple of goaltenders, Lukas Dostal and Arvid Soderblom are unlikely to move. If Anaheim is afraid to give Dostal value, I would be mystified, but that’s an opportunity that the Blue Jackets couldn’t pass up. Soderblom is okay but we’ll get into his poor fit in just a minute.

Bowen Byram is on team elected arbitration which is just bound to be a fantastic bit of drama but unlikely to have any relevance to the Blue Jackets. Likewise, I’d take stabs at Maxim Tsyplakov, Jayden Struble or Drew Helleson but I’d imagine they wrap up rather amicably well before the destructive arbitration hearings.

Any of these, and the above, additions serves to push players down, increase optionality in the top six and create a ton of options for the bottom six. The right addition might even help ease the sting of Provorov long term. Edmonton made Cup Finals with Darnell Nurse and Cody Ceci, Dallas made Conference Finals with Cody Ceci. The Blue Jackets likely only have 2 years of supreme cap advantage from Marchenko, Johnson and Mateychuk, so maybe I’m just completely hoping.

Cap Pinched Teams

The last factor relating to potential upcoming moves this offseason is the couple of teams that are over/perilously near the cap. For now, the only one that I am certain about is the Florida Panthers. They will soon need to pay the price of their running-it-back extravaganza.

Given every other players’ no-move clause (Seth Jones, Carter Verhaeghe) or talent far exceeding their cap hit (Niko Mikkola, Anton Lundell, Eetu Luostarinen) the most eligible trade candidates are Evan Rodrigues and Mackie Samoskevich.

Both would be heavily desired additions to the Blue Jackets. Rodrigues is a former, but perhaps no longer analytics darling, who I still believe has the passing and play-connection ability to be excellent alongside the young Blue Jackets. Mackie Samoskevich was Adam Fantilli’s linemate at Michigan, played with him in Junior at Chicago Steel in his Draft Year and Fantilli’s D-2 (Jackson Blake as well who would be absolutely fantastic), and also crossed paths with Kent Johnson at Michigan as well.

Though I would have believed Gavin Brindley to be a desirable candidate for a swap of these two, adding back this very interesting rush playmaker would also be a fantastic way to round out the forward group.

Though the chemistry doesn’t inherently grade out well, one of Sean Monahan’s ideal linemates was Viktor Arvidsson (who could have been had nearly for free) and one of Kent Johnson’s Nino Niederreiter. There’s a ton of fit for either player here.

The Golden Knights, Montreal Canadiens and Dallas Stars may also need to find some cushion against the cap. The Knights and Canadiens have LTIR massive contracts of Alex Pietrangelo and Carey Price on their books, so I assume both are fine.

The Dallas Stars are $1.79m over but should be able to move the contracts of Ilya Lyubushkin or Matt Dumba, so I imagine there’s not much of trade interest for the Blue Jackets. Obviously moving Jason Robertson would heavily change that calculus.

Edmonton Oilers, Philadelphia Flyers, St Louis Blues, New York Rangers, Vancouver Canucks are all within 1 million of the cap ceiling, though the Canucks and Flyers don’t have full rosters.

As much as the insiders keep talking about player movement via trades, I’m not sure I see the potential for a lot of motion. Jack Roslovic is still unsigned with Toronto reportedly interested (which is hilarious given that it’s literally Free Agency), Florida and Dallas have to tinker with their rosters but the history of the NHL suggests it might continue to be quiet.

Waddell on Goaltenders

Something that perhaps went under the radar during Waddell’s press conference after signing Provorov was his expressions of targets. I write this article partly because he said he was getting a center that fit with the group, which was Lundestrom, that he wasn’t utilizing free agency to improve the club further (which sounds like he might be trying to trade) and that he was going to look at a waivers-exempt goaltender probably through trade.

That last bit is the interesting part. A waiver’s exempt goalie. Jet Greaves is now eligible for waivers, as Tarasov was last year, which means if he’s not with CBJ he’s eligible to be claimed by another team.

I suppose that Waddell wants an ineligible goalie instead of a veteran AHL netminder or waiver’s claim caliber simply so they can have some consistency should Greaves not work. It sounds then like the plan would be to have three goalies on the roster.

I have to admit I wasn’t clear what made a goalie eligible for waivers but it appears that it is related to their age and professional (AHL included) games played, seasons played with certain NHL games. There aren’t veterans that are automatically exempt from waivers for any reason. That, naturally, means a waivers exempt goalie is also a young one.

I don’t have a great way to visualize which goalies are waiver exempt but you can take a look on the available goaltenders on this PuckPedia filter. The most interesting names would be Jakub Dobes and Devon Levi (assuming we leave out high pedigree goalies in Yaroslav Askarov and Jesper Wallstedt).

Dobes was recently signed by Montreal but was on a heater in the second half and would be familier to the city of Columbus having attended Ohio State. I assume his play was too good for Montreal to pass up but I’m not sure their preference considering premium prospect Jacob Fowler is in the AHL and they have signed Kaapo Kahkonen.

Devon Levi is, like Jet Greaves, an undersized goalie with big believers in the industry. He wasn’t good last year for Buffalo, so perhaps they take an asset for a player they no longer believe in, but it’s not clear what he would cost.

Detroit, like Montreal, also have Sebastian Cossa in the organization along with a ton of other waivers exempt goaltenders. He was high pedigree but has had an unsteady journey towards the NHL. His AHL numbers look okay as far as I can tell. Detroit now has Trey Augustine who looks really good.

Erik Portillo, a recent University of Michigan goaltender, now with the Kings organization has been up and down recently as well. He won a lot in the AHL but didn’t perform as well as you’d think on traditional goalie stats.

Tomas Suchanek is a young goalie in the Ducks system with an excellent goaltending coach. He outperformed his fellow waivers eligible teammate Calle Clang but the Ducks have Lukas Dostal who doesn’t look like he’s giving up his net anytime soon.

I’m sure the Blue Jackets goaltending staff and scouts have opinions on some of the other unmentioned goaltenders but it will be interesting to see if Don Waddell can thread the needle with this transaction. You want a young player but don’t want to pay too many assets given recent draft picks in Pyotr Andreyanov and Evan Gardner. They also don’t want a player who isn’t good at all because they’re clearly worried about running only Jet Greaves in case of Merzlikins injury.

Maybe Don doesn’t mind keeping a third, waivers claim veteran goaltender once the season gets going which would also point to the trickiness of an NHL/AHL goaltender acquisition.