Make no mistake about it: the Columbus Blue Jackets are (still) in the market for a guy who can score goals.
Wild concept, right?
As training camp opens and with preseason games just days away, President of Hockey Operations and General Manager Don Waddell was refreshingly transparent regarding the club’s desire to add another forward at the Blue Jackets media day Wednesday.
Don Waddell says the #CBJ are still looking to add and are talking with numerous teams about adding a scorer.
— 1st Ohio Battery (@1stOhioBattery) September 18, 2024
“We’re talking to a lot of teams and checking the boxes to see who is left out there (via free agency) or who might be available via trade,” said Waddell.
One of those free agency signings took place Sunday, with Columbus adding James van Riemsdyk on a one-year contract. The 35-year-old winger has, as Waddell pointed out, double digit goals in each of his 15 NHL seasons.
An addition could also come via adding a player currently on a tryout contract with another club. Players signed to a PTO (Professional Tryout Contract) are eligible to be signed to a standard contract by any team at any time. In other words, if a team likes what they see from a player on a PTO with another team, they can swoop him and sign him without permission from the team whose sweater that player is wearing.
Waddell and company are actively watching such players.
“There’s a lot of guys on tryouts with a lot of NHL teams. We have that list, so we’re going to make sure that our scouts are out there watching those players,” said Waddell.
But perhaps the best option to add an impact scorer could come by way of trade. The Blue Jackets have one thing a lot of teams don't have: cap space. That was true even before the unthinkable passing of Johnny Gaudreau, whose $9.75 million salary cap hit was the highest on the team.
"Because of the salary cap and where we're at, we have room if a player becomes available that has a higher salary — we don’t have an issue with that," said Waddell.
As the roster is currently constructed, the Blue Jackets sit at $63.2 million — that's more than $3 million less than any other team, and $1.8 million under the cap floor.
Technically, that would make a franchise ineligible to play. However, Waddell has insinuated on multiple occasions that the NHL is willing to give a waiver, considering the circumstances and timing of Gaudreau's death.
Whether or not they have the option to stay under the cap, it's easy to imagine that the Blue Jackets would want to show they're serious about winning games in 2024-25 and one way to do that would be to get above the cap floor.
While Waddell did not mention any teams by name, logic and math could lead us to some potential trade partners. There are five teams currently over the $88.0 million dollar salary cap: the Washington Capitals ($10.3 million over), the Vegas Golden Knights ($3.6 million over, though that's down from the $8.6 million they were over before moving goalie Robin Lehner to LTIR Thursday, saving them $5.0 million in cap space for the regular season), the Montreal Canadiens ($2.2 million over), the Toronto Maple Leafs ($1.1 million over), and the Philadelphia Flyers ($830k over).
The New York Islanders are exactly at the cap, and two more teams — the Seattle Kraken ($4k under) and the Carolina Hurricanes ($80k under) — are less than a McDonald's manager salary away from being over the cap.
Ten other teams have less than $1 million in wiggle room and de facto, can't really afford to take on any additional (and meaningful) salaries. In all, it's more than half the league that is either over the cap or has less than a million to spare.
Compare that to the Blue Jackets $24.8 million to work with, and it's easy to see why Waddell will be on the phone a lot over the next few weeks.
Who might he be on the phone with, though? Process of elimination could offer a few suggestions: with the Golden Knights still over the cap, could former Blue Jacket forward William Karlsson make his way back to Columbus? He's taking up $5.9 million per season over the next three years in Vegas, so the Knights would be smart to listen to offers as they continue to struggle with (and eventually circumnavigate) the cap on an annual basis. Karlsson was a fan favorite in his first stint with the Blue Jackets and is still a productive player: he scored 30 goals and added 30 assists in 70 games in 2023-24.
What about another former Blue Jacket in Oliver Bjorkstrand? Seattle is technically under the cap, but right at the limit. It's not a stretch to assume that the Kraken like Bjorkstrand, who has two years left at a $5.4 million cap hit. But what if the Blue Jackets really wanted to get crafty? They could take on a pair of salaries — Seattle has a short-term albatross of a contract with forward Brandon Tanev owed $3.5 million this season. He'll be 33 before the calendar year is up and scored just seven goals (plus nine assists) in 66 games with the Kraken last season. Would taking Tanev entice Seattle, one of the league's biggest disappointed in 2023-24, to also move Bjorky?
Regardless of who Waddell might want to add, any player the team brings in will need the stamp of approval from at least one more person in the organization.
“As long as it’s a player that fits how (head coach) Dean (Evason) wants the guys to play.”
That may seem minor, but it's been quite a while since a head coach and general manager in the Blue Jackets organization were in lockstep. It's just another small sign of a cultural shift within the walls of Nationwide Arena, and perhaps the facelift off the ice will produce results on it.
Would you be in favor of William Karlsson or Oliver Bjorkstrand making their back to Columbus? Slap your shot in the comments.
