NHL Rumors: Columbus Blue Jackets, Montreal Canadiens, and NHL Expansion
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An expected quiet deadline day for the Blue Jackets, and they’ll be on the lookout for defensemen this offseason

Aaron Portzline of the Athletic: The Columbus Blue Jackets had a quiet trade deadline day, which was expected as they made their bigger moves before.

“You take the phone calls and see if there’s something, see if somebody has some ideas and something pops up. But we weren’t really looking to do much today.”

GM Jarmo Kekalainen would have liked to have added Jakob Chychryn but that didn’t work out.

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“We’ve got a lot of work left to do in the offseason, and right now the opportunities are not there because 20 teams are trying to load up (for the playoffs) and they’re not willing to give up anything,” Kekalainen said.

“Those opportunities will come in the offseason, when there’ll be 31 disappointed teams.”

The Blue Jackets will be focusing on their blue line this offseason and will be looking for someone to add to their top-four. Prospect David Jiricek could eventually be a candidate to play on the top pair with Zach Werenski but the 19-year-old may not be ready yet for that big of role.

Could the Canadiens re-sign Sean Monahan?

Marco D’Amico of Montreal Hockey Now: Injuries prevented the Montreal Canadiens from trading forward Sean Monahan at the deadline.

The Canadiens could consider giving him a one-year extension that is full of bonuses. Bonus-laden contracts are usually given to 35+ players or for entry-level contracts. Under the CBA Monahan could qualify as he’s played over 400 games, and after March 16th, will have been injured for at least 100 days.

They could give Monahan games played or something like number of goals scored, which would max out at $1 million for each type of bonus. The Canadiens could offer him a $2 million base salary deal and say $2 million in potential performance bonuses.

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NHL Expansion rumors

Andy Strickland: A league source said that Atlanta and Houston are two cities have shown some expansion interest but those two cities are not ahead of any other potential cities, and nothing is going to be happening soon, if at all.

Source added: “Not sure these two cities are even at top of our list”

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