The Columbus Blue Jackets Have Several Key Pieces Teams Will Want
Dave Pagnotta of the Fourth Period joined Sirius XM NHL Network Radio and was asked about the Columbus Blue Jackets. Will they be active now, or will that be more toward March 7th, the NHL Trade Deadline?
NHLRumors.com Transcriptions
NHL Rumors: Two Factors Driving Up Tick in Players Signing In Season
Steve Kouleas: “With Dave Pagnotta Sirius, XM Power Play Insider, the Fourth Period as well fourthperiod.com. I’m on the website, and Columbus has been a nice, pleasant, feel-good story surprise. Does that change the teams you write about calling about Provorov, or is that more about March 7? March 7? March 7.”
Dave Pagnotta: “I think that’s another scenario, and they’ve you know, while you know, Don Waddell is getting calls and inquiries and the staff there as well, with respect to (Ivan) Provorov and a few others, he’s going to be a high ticket guy. He’s going to be somebody a lot of teams are going to be poking around on to see what that price tag is going to be later on in the season.
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Columbus isn’t itching to make a move now of that magnitude unless somebody will overpay significantly; they don’t need to. So wait things out. Build up, you know, further, build up the market. Increase that price tag, and if you can maximize even more of a return down the road, you can do it.
LA is eating a portion of his cap from the original trade that took place. So this isn’t going to be a substantial burden financially for a team that wants to bring him in, especially, and I think it’s just over 4.7 in his cap. It little over that.
So Columbus is in a position where they can even eat half of that portion and bring him in at, two-point whatever, and you’ve got an even more attractive piece to add to your probably second pair for contending teams, he’s going to be somebody that a lot of teams are going to be zeroing in on.
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This is the due diligence process now, as we get around that 10-game mark, for most teams to kind of collect that information and try to make a splash later on. But you know, Columbus, they’re going to get interest. They’re going to get calls, excuse me, for a number of their players, and it’s just a matter of seeing, what the market is going to bear for that.
Provorov will certainly be one. And you have to imagine that you have some other pieces up front. They’ve got some depth pieces that that could be potentially trade targets for some teams looking to shore up their bottom six, whether it’s a guy like JVR or Kevin Lebanc, who both came in on smaller deals, is it a Kuraly and so on and so on. So they’ll be active. I think it’ll be Koolie later on in the season.”