Patient GM scenario

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Created by: CertifiedAverage

Team: 2025-26 Columbus Blue Jackets

Initial Creation Date: Mar. 16, 2024

Published: Mar. 26, 2024

Salary Cap Mode: Basic

Description

A variation on my previous post:
https://www.capfriendly.com/armchair-gm/team/4985381

The GM does very little in the 2024 off-season. They pick at #4. After Celebrini, Lindstrom and Demidov goes, Columbus pick Levshunov.

A frustrated Merzlikins asks for a trade in the off-season. CBJ trade him to CGY. At the draft, they trade Bean and Boqvist. They get draft picks and Spencer Knight in return. They sign no major UFAs in the off-season.

In 2024-25, the Blue Jackets miss the playoffs and trade Provorov, Kuraly and Olivier at the TDL.

Now the GM has gotten himself the lay of the land. He's ready to make his moves.

The Blue Jackets need real difference makers. They have a lot of very good young players, but few superstars. They also have a lot of good prospects. These are all pieces to use to strike when an opportunity presents itself. But the first move the GM makes is to use their cap space to secure the big fish in the 2025 off-season: Leon Draisaitl.

Now he has a superstar contributor as well as a lot of good players, prospects and picks to use in a trade to further strengthen the team as well. Laine, Marchenko, Johnson, Chinakhov, Jenner, Gudbranson, Brindley, Dumais, Svozil and Ceulemans can all be paired with picks and used to this end. He is going to have to do something to fit everyone under the cap, but the future looks bright.

Sometimes, a little patience can pay off.

Free Agent Signings

RESERVE LIST	YEARS	CAP HIT
Brindley, Gavin	2	$850,000
Ivanov, Sergei	3	$800,000
Keskinen, Oiva	3	$800,000
Whitelaw, William	3	$870,000

RFA	YEARS	CAP HIT
Blankenburg, Nick	2	$900,000
Chinakhov, Yegor	1	$2,305,000
Greaves, Jet	2	$800,000
Johnson, Kent	1	$2,400,000
Marchenko, Kirill	4	$6,405,000
McKown, Hunter	2	$950,000
Nylander, Alexander	1	$800,000
Sillinger, Cole	1	$2,260,000
Texier, Alexandre	1	$1,500,000
Voronkov, Dmitri	3	$3,000,000

UFA		YEARS	CAP HIT
Draisaitl, Leon		8	$13,250,000

CREATED		YEARS	CAP HIT
Levshunov, Artyom		3	$950,000

Trades

CBJ

2024 2nd round pick (CBJ)

PHI

2025 2nd round pick (CBJ)

CBJ

2025 3rd round pick (LAK)

LAK

Bean, Jake [RFA Rights]

Additional Details:

Any team needing an offensive D.

CBJ

Knight, Spencer
2024 3rd round pick (FLA)

FLA

Boqvist, Adam [RFA Rights]

CBJ

2024 6th round pick (CGY)

CGY

Merzlikins, Elvis

CBJ

2025 2nd round pick (TBL)
2026 1st round pick (TBL)

TBL

Ivan Provorov 2362500 (50 %) retained at the 2025 TDL.

CBJ

2025 2nd round pick (DET)

DET

Sean Kuraly at the 2025 TDL.

CBJ

2025 3rd round pick (WPG)

WPG

Mathieu Olivier at the 2025 TDL.

Buyouts

Alexander Wennberg: $891,667

Draft	Round 1	Round 2	Round 3	Round 4	Round 5	Round 6	Round 7
2024
2025
2026

ROSTER

LONG-TERM OUTLOOK

EMBED

TEXT-EMBED

ROSTER SIZE	SALARY CAP	CAP HIT	OVERAGES	BONUSES	CAP SPACE
23	$92,000,000	$86,398,333	$0	$5,200,000	$5,601,667

Left Wing	Centre	Right Wing
Gaudreau, Johnny $9,750,000$9,750,000 LW NMC UFA - 4	Draisaitl, Leon $13,250,000$13,250,000 C, LW UFA	Marchenko, Kirill $6,405,000$6,405,000 RW RFA
Johnson, Kent $2,400,000$2,400,000 LW, C RFA	Fantilli, Adam $950,000$950,000 ($3,200,000$3M) C RFA - 1	Laine, Patrik $8,700,000$8,700,000 C, RW, LW M-NTC UFA - 1
Jenner, Boone $3,750,000$3,750,000 C, LW M-NTC UFA - 1	Sillinger, Cole $2,260,000$2,260,000 C RFA	Chinakhov, Yegor $2,305,000$2,305,000 RW, LW RFA
Texier, Alexandre $1,500,000$1,500,000 LW, C, RW RFA	Voronkov, Dmitri $3,000,000$3,000,000 LW, C, RW RFA	Dumais, Jordan $891,667$891,667 RW RFA - 1
		Brindley, Gavin $850,000$850,000 C RFA - 1

Left Defense	Right Defense	Goaltender
Werenski, Zachary $9,583,333$9,583,333 LD NMC UFA - 3	Jiricek, David $918,333$918,333 ($1,000,000$1M) RD RFA - 1	Knight, Spencer $4,500,000$4,500,000 G RFA - 1
Mateychuk, Denton $918,333$918,333 ($1,000,000$1M) LD RFA - 1	Gudbranson, Erik $4,000,000$4,000,000 RD M-NTC UFA - 1	Greaves, Jet $800,000$800,000 G RFA
Blankenburg, Nick $900,000$900,000 LD/RD UFA	Severson, Damon $6,250,000$6,250,000 RD NTC UFA - 6
Svozil, Stanislav $825,000$825,000 LD RFA - 1

Scratches	Injured Reserve (IR)	Long Term IR (LTIR)
Nylander, Alexander $800,000$800,000 RW, LW RFA

Mar. 26 at 8:40 a.m.

Boltsbeathabs

Joined: Jul. 2021

Posts: 6,683

Likes: 2,519

Edited Mar. 26 at 8:59 a.m.

TB didn't give that up for Hanifin you think they do that for Provorov? Bhaha Bahaha that's funny. Zito tells JD to pound sand.

Justafan79 liked this.

Mar. 26 at 9:13 a.m.

Droakner

Joined: Oct. 2023

Posts: 201

Likes: 62

Columbus isn't going to be good for a while so what makes you think that in the small chance that he leaves Edmonton he is going to a team in the middle of a rebuild, plus I have a feeling that Jackson and Katz will tell the new Oil GM that to move anything to keep Draisaitl.

Mar. 26 at 10:06 a.m.

Gmonwy

GO FLAMES GO

Joined: Sep. 2020

Posts: 18,308

Likes: 10,642

Merzlinkns is no interest to CGY

MoxNix liked this.

Mar. 26 at 10:35 a.m.

CertifiedAverage

Thread Starter

Joined: Feb. 2024

Posts: 144

Likes: 101

Quoting: Boltsbeathabs

TB didn't give that up for Hanifin you think they do that for Provorov? Bhaha Bahaha that's funny. Zito tells JD to pound sand.

Provorov has a very low cap hit. You'd think he'd be valuable to them, given their cap situation. Particularly if Sergachev gets injured again. But I get your point, he's no Tanner Jeannot.

Quoting: Droakner

It's a scenario (a highly optimistic one at that), not a prediction. I think Columbus are a playoff calibre team without Draisaitl in 2025-26. If they make good progress next year with Jiricek, Mateychuk, etc. showing well, it's not unreasonable to think that he might sign there. Lower taxes and a lot of cap space means he can get paid as well. But as I said, it's not a prediction. I'm not even certain that it's my preference. A player of his calibre in his prime will demand quite the salary.

CaseyFlyman and Droakner liked this.

Mar. 26 at 10:51 a.m.

MoxNix

Joined: Aug. 2022

Posts: 7,396

Likes: 3,178

Quoting: Gmonwy

Merzlinkns is no interest to CGY

Yeah, Calgary needs to move a goalie not take on an expensive one who'd be behind the 3 we have now. Find someone else to take your cap dump and you can talk to us about trading for Markstrom to replace him.

Mar. 26 at 11:10 a.m.

CaseyFlyman

Joined: Sep. 2018

Posts: 2,052

Likes: 1,714

Pretty much agree with the patient approach. Who know what the actual returns would be, but moving Bean, Elvis, Provorov, Kuraly, and Olivier seems to be the right move. Of those 5, I'd be fine with keeping Olivier as a 4th liner over someone like Dumais or Brindley playing down there.

My concern is there's a ton of question marks all over the roster. Can Mateychuk and Jiricek hit their potential, within a year or two? If they don't, that D-core is worse than this year potentially. Can we attract and afford a UFA like Drai? If we don't, our 1C is a very fresh Fantilli. Is Laine going to be a top-6 player again? If not, our right side could be very mid. Are Knight and Greaves NHL goaltenders? If not, obvious concern there.

It's the right track, and even without Drai this team should be contending within the next 3 years. But that's a lot of question marks on development that need to get sorted.

squashmaple liked this.

Mar. 26 at 11:12 a.m.

Justafan79

Joined: May 2023

Posts: 1,328

Likes: 608

Quoting: CertifiedAverage

Provorov has a very low cap hit. You'd think he'd be valuable to them, given their cap situation. Particularly if Sergachev gets injured again. But I get your point, he's no Tanner Jeannot.

Ahhh a guy overpays drastically once ,So he does every time what brilliant jack*** analysis!!! I see you have the ability to use applied logic of a two year old.

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