If they're bad again next season, that really puts the development of their key young players (Johnson, Jiricek, Fantilli) at risk and also creates potential for other important players to want out.
Yes, it would be awful. We have the prospects needed; at this point it's about teaching them how to play the right way to succeed at the NHL level.
Columbus needs a lot more than Robert Thomas to go from a 66-point team to a winning team next year.
Not even close to enough value for the Blues to consider moving Robert Thomas. Horrible proposal.
Agreed. They have the core of thomas buch kyrou neighbors schenn. Kessel parayko binning and hofer. Then we newcomers bolduc and dean. Then we have dvorsky who will make team of camp. After that we have stenberg lindstein snuggerud plekrick and now we just signed a really good swede. We also have ellis and vaidem zherenko.
Sure but what they need is already in the room aside from a league average goalie and an assistant coach who isn't Mark Recchi.
The Blue Jackets improved by seven points over the previous season and have plenty of teams in front of them who can also claim a massive amount of injuries and some key guys playing below their abilities. Columbus should be patient with a rebuild (not that the Blues are making this trade).
The Jackets have been at the top of man games lost the last 2 seasons. Very few teams can claim that injuries have played as big of a role in their results as Columbus.
Jiricek isn't going anywhere. We're not trading NHL ready prospects, in an area of need, for picks. Unless an equal level prospect is coming to fill his spot, it's a no.
And if that draft pick turn into Luke Schenn we just traded a proven 30 goal scorer and another 1st rounder into a 2nd pair defenseman.
I wouldn’t make that trade, but at some point we will need to take a swing, whether that is drafting or trading for a player.
