For teams at the bottom of the NHL standings, trading expiring assets is team-building 101.
So the Columbus Blue Jackets made the correct decision to trade pending UFA defenseman Vladislav Gavrikov. There's no arguing that, and all things considered, GM Jarmo Kekalainen actually got a pretty reasonable return after scrambling once a trade with the Boston Bruins failed to come to fruition. But trading the left-handed defenseman opens up a massive hole in the middle of an already-weak defense.
That's no problem for the remainder of this season, where the wins are empty calories and the losses bring the organization closer (theoretically) to a crown jewel. But it's not difficult to envision a scenario where the Blue Jacket end up spending the next few years wishing they had a player that, well, played just like Gavrikov.
Some may argue that the replacement(s) will need to come from inside the organization, either from someone like Andrew Peeke and/or Erik Gudbranson. And while I understand the sentiment, neither player is as effective as the 27-year-old defender. In his media availability on Wednesday, Kekalainen all but admitted that the club and player were not close to agreeing on a contract length, and that money was not the issue.
"We tried for months. It wasn't a gap, really, it was more about the term, and we couldn't agree on it."
That's a tough pill to swallow when you realize that Gudbranson was 30 years old when he was given a four-year, $16M contract this offseason. Even at the maximum eight-year length that can be offered to incumbent players, the Blue Jackets could have had Gavrikov, a better player, on a contract expiring on a similar timeframe. So while Kekalainen deserves credit for the decision and the return, the process to get to this point is not optimum.
On the other hand, the Blue Jackets are clearly more than one Gavrikov away from being competitive. So perhaps the lack of a second/third-pair defender that can play a rugged-style game effectively is less pressing than suggested, after all.
The Blue Jackets have a plethora of defense prospects on the horizon, but aside from David Jiricek, it's unlikely that we'll see any of them in the NHL next season. The organization may be on the lookout to add a free agent (or two) this off-season to help build a bridge from the current (Jake Bean, Tim Berni, Adam Boqvist, etc.) to the future (Jiricek, Denton Mateychuk, Corson Ceulemans, Stanislav Svozil, etc.).
Gavrikov is the type of success story that you'd like to see have a happier ending. Typically, teams are happy to hold onto their homegrown, sixth-round draft picks that turn into productive NHL players. In trading for future draft picks, the Blue Jackets will look to find its next wave of talent.
