With most of the NHL’s biggest names gone in this seasons NHL free agency cycle, grades are rolling out for all 32 teams. In ESPN’s collaborative report card, the Columbus Blue Jackets received the leagues only D grade.
In addition to keeping defenseman Ivan Provorov, the Blue Jackets added forwards Charlie Coyle and Myles Wood. However, these two additions seem to simply replace the two forwards the team let walk in Justin Danforth and Sean Kuraly. This makes for a free agent class that ESPN believes is ultimately a wash.
“Columbus had a decent list of players for free agency. But the Blue Jackets didn’t actually go ahead and make an abundance of moves,” ESPN writes. “It’s all just going to be more of the same for Columbus — which fell just short of a postseason berth last season — if Waddell doesn’t do something this summer to actively make the team better than it was.
ESPN Believes Columbus Over Paid For Ivan Provorov
The biggest deal of the offseason involved nearly 60 million dollars and took place just before blue liner Ivan Provorov hit the market. Provorov received a massive seven-year deal that the analysts at ESPN say should’ve been used to bring in a goal scorer.
“Instead of finding a winger to improve their top six or a right-side defenseman to bolster their top-four group, GM Don Waddell decided to massively overpay Columbus’ own pending free agent defender Ivan Provorov with a seven-year, $59.5 million contract. That was not ideal,” the article reads.
Don Waddell himself is extremely relieved to have Provorov staying in Ohio for a long time coming.
“I’ve told the story several times,” Waddell said on July 1st. “Up in Canada, when he dislocated his thumb (Dec. 6 vs. Vancouver) and I asked him how long he was going to be out because we weren’t sure, and he looked at me and said, ‘Don, I broke my thumb, not my foot.’ And he never missed a game. This is a true warrior and we’re very comfortable giving him the term of seven years.”
GM Don Waddell Speaks On Underwhelming Offseason
While some have used the Blue Jackets’ lack of moves as a point to attack the team, general manager Don Waddell defends the decision.
“I always say you don’t make changes for the sake of making changes,” Waddell said. “You make changes to try to make your team better. We felt we did that with the few changes we made.
Anytime guys can be together, especially this group – this is a special group with everything that happened last year, how they stuck together, how they were at the end of the year and moving forward. I think trying to keep the nucleus together was important.”
He also added that the team obviously assessed the market, but was ultimately unmoved by the available prospects in an admittedly down year for free agents. He added that the front office “felt very comfortable moving forward” with the current squad that won 40 games last year.
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