oh boy this is my time to shine, here's a rundown on tim berni for anyone who's like "hey, who is that fella, what's his deal"
basically, he's an AHL defenseman. or he should be an AHL defenseman.
last year the jackets had a million injuries on defense, and it led to him surprisingly getting called up. as a former sixth round pick from way back in 2018, no one really expected much from him. they didn't necessarily get much from him, but he played a lot of minutes on a bad defense and rarely, if ever, looked worse than the other guys. kinda looked like a passable #6 or #7.
that was also a contract year, so you'd think he earned himself a little raise on a two-way deal, right? well, about that:
1. guys got healthy in the NHL
2. they added provorov and severson
3. svozil and ceulemans joined the AHL squad
4. other AHL guys (knazko, christiansen) had good seasons
5. the other random call-up who overperformed (marcus bjork) has one more year left on his deal
this all created a situation where there is no #7D spot for berni to compete for, which is fine, except… well, there probably isn't an AHL lineup spot for him, either, since they have higher-touted guys there who need to play.
so he and his agent maybe requested a trade + refused to sign his QO this summer. but he's tim berni and no one knows who he is or needs their own tim berni, so that didn't go anywhere.
…which led to him coming to camp without a contract anyway.
if he doesn't get one (or a trade) he'll probably become yet another guy in the long line of Blue Jackets Guys Who Abruptly Went Back To Europe (it is a surprisingly long list)