Blue jackets decline but leafs also aren’t using two first this year lmao this season is lost try again next year brad has come out and said he’s just watching the team and figuring out how he can improve over the offseason minimal buying if any

Not sure why there are people thinking the Jackets, a team who is rebuilding and has a dire need for a top RD, would be willing to trade away their recently drafted 1RD prospect for lower quality picks or prospects. It's just a silly proposition.

Because despite outplaying most of their NHL D they still don't dress him. They have chosen consistently to play other D ahead of him.

They have also explicitly said they aren't in a rebuild.

They just traded for Severson and Provorov this summer. They have a top D in Werenski. They have Gudbransson who will cost to move, Boqvist who is a former 8th overall pick RHD and centerpiece of the Jones trade.

Hard to see where Jiriceck fits into their plans. If they valued him above those guys he'd. Be playing in the NHL right now.

Jiricek has dressed in 36/45 games this year so they are playing him.

He has not been outplaying other players, he has pretty clear skating deficiencies at the moment that they are working on with him.

JD has clearly said that they've taken a step back from what they thought the team was and that the rebuild is continuing.

Provorov is not a long term part of their future. He's filling the role they wanted to keep Gavrikov for which is providing NHL caliber play while Mateychuk and Svozil develop properly.

Werenski is a LD. You don't get rid of a quality RD prospect because you have a good LD.

Gudbranson's contract comes off the books before any of their significant young players will be getting a real contract. He is not at all an issue for their cap situation.

Boqvist is not a part of their future whatsoever. He has shown no ability to stay healthy or improve his defensive game to a level that a top 4 NHL defenseman needs to be capable of.

Jiricek very obviously fits into their future as a part of their current crop of 23 and younger players. The only other RD they have right now in their long term plans besides Jiricek at the moment is Severson.

Being willfully ignorant and misleading of all of these things isn't going to make such a horrible trade proposal any more likely.

If the insanely unlikely scenario played out where they decided to trade Jiricek it would be for a *premium* NHL ready player and not multiple late firsts and a prospect like Niemela who has literally zero proven NHL ability.

This whole thing is so classic bs from fans of other teams. People will flame the Jackets when they play their young guys early, but also flame them when they play them conservatively when they're still extremely young. They're developing the guy and that takes time. He's in his D+2 season. Playing at all in the NHL right now is damn good for a defenseman. I bet you think the Kings should be rushing to trade away Clarke or the Red Wings should be taking parts for Edvinsson.

That's a Timmins to Chicago trade the Hawks might actually consider. Although Johnson supposedly has all 7 Canadian teams on his no trade list, so that might be an issue.

And CHI explicitly said they aren’t tanking.