June will be a busy month for the NHL and as a result the Columbus Blue Jackets.
It will be busier than normal, in fact, largely because of the expansion draft set for June 21, just a few days ahead of the amateur draft. Each team in the NHL will lose one player to the Vegas Golden Knights while being able to protect core players – a list that likely will include for Columbus seven forwards, three defensemen and a goaltender.
The last part there – being able to protect just one goaltender – leads to an interesting conundrum for the Blue Jackets. With a no-movement clause in his contract, not to mention the fact he's a potential Vezina Trophy winner this year, Sergei Bobrovsky is the one goalie the Jackets have to protect.
That leaves upcoming restricted free agents Joonas Korpisalo and Anton Forsberg, each of whom have NHL experience, as potential choices of the Golden Knights. The Blue Jackets' goaltending depth behind Bobrovsky and how it plays out is one of the most interesting themes of this offseason, but a clue on how the Jackets might proceed comes from Sportsnet insider Elliotte Friedman.
Speaking on the radio in Calgary today, Friedman suggested the Blue Jackets and Golden Knights have already discussed goaltenders and that the Golden Knights likely will make Pittsburgh's Marc-Andre Fleury a netminding target.
“I think if you look at Vegas we believe they’re pretty far down the path – if they don’t have a deal with Pittsburgh already on Fleury,” Friedman said (begins around 14:20 on audio). “Nick (Kypreos) has been on this one for awhile now and I think there’s a lot of truth to it.
“I’m very curious to see what they’re going to do – I know there’s people who feel that they’ve had a lot of talk with Columbus, allowing Columbus to keep Korpisalo, and what that’ll do. What Columbus will do to allow that to happen."
If that's the case, it appears the Jackets would be casting their lot with Korpisalo as Bobrovsky's backup and potentially future successor. Korpisalo started 30 games when Bobrovsky and Curtis McElhinney were injured in 2015-16, going 16-11-4 with a 2.60 GAA and .920 save percentage while looking the part of an NHL starter. This past year, he became the full-time backup at age 23 after the release of McElhinney and went 7-5-1 in 13 games with a 2.88 GAA and .905 SV%.
So if Columbus wants to make sure it keeps Korpisalo – especially in a world in which goaltenders could have very strong value for Vegas – there might have to be some agreement between the Jackets and Vegas, as Friedman suggested.
What that agreement might be remains to be seen, but it adds a level of intrigue for the Blue Jackets heading into the expansion draft.
There have been rumblings the Golden Knights would like to make some deals ahead of the expansion draft, which is expected to be a hectic time, so we might have our answers sooner rather than later.
