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David Clarkson traded to Vegas

June 21, 2017, 5:12 PM ET [7 Comments]
Paul Berthelot
Columbus Blue Jackets Blogger • RSSArchiveCONTACT
It is official Vegas has selected William Karlsson. The Jackets-Vegas trade is also complete.




So it ends up being a 2019 second round pick instead of a prospect. This is still a lot to pay to get out from under a bad deal, but this could of been a lot worse. Giving up a pick is much better than giving up a prospect. This deal is very much in line with what the Islanders gave up. The Jackets clear a ton of cap space and now have plenty of room to make a splash in free agency. Hopefully they can be big players for some of the bigger names come July 1st.

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There is a new wrinkle to the Jackets-Vegas trade. Apparently the Jets will be involved in the trade somehow.




I imagine the Jets will be switching picks here, with Vegas getting pick 13, and the Jets getting the Jackets pick 24. Bob McKenzie has the same speculation.




This doesn't affect the Jackets either way, but it does mean this trade is certainly going to happen.

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It has been reported by both Aaron Portzline and Elliotte Friedman that the Vegas Golden Knights have selected William Karlsson from the Blue Jackets.







As Portzline says, nothing is official yet, but it would be big surprise to hear Vegas call another Blue Jackets player. The pick will be made official tonight during the NHL Awards.
Going forward this means the Jackets have a couple open forward spots. Tom Reed has suggested that Lukas Sedlak’s role will grow. Perhaps he jumps into that third line centre role and takes over Karlsson’s penalty kill time.




The more interesting and exciting name though for that spot is Pierre-Luc Dubois. If Dubois can have a big summer and show he's ready he definitely will have a chance to make the team next season. This is all speculation for now and we will have plenty of time in the summer to guess the roster.

The bigger story here for the Jackets are the details of the rumoured trade with Vegas. The NHL for some unknown reason has decided to wait until tomorrow to announce trades. The rumoured deal is still pick #24, and a prospect in exchange for Vegas not selecting Josh Anderson, Joonas Korpisalo and Jack Johnson. Portzline in his story today said “The Jackets are likely also unloading injured forward David Clarkson’s contract to Vegas in the trade.”




Clarkson has to be one hundred percent in this deal for it to make any sense. Karlsson is not that much worse than any of the players protected that you would have pay this high of a price to take him. The Jackets are paying a surprisingly high price to protect depth players; they need to be unloading a large contract, or were back to the bad asset management. Portzline talks about other teams giving up assets to Vegas to steer them away from players, but fails to mention that those teams are protecting some highly skilled impact players. The Wild and Islanders are paying a high price to protect players but they are protecting players like Matt Dumba, Eric Staal, Ryan Strome and Calvin De Haan respectively. These are top six and top four defencemen, not depth pieces.

As more information is revealed and things become official, I will update this post accordingly if anything significant happens.

You can follow me on Twitter @PaulBerthelot
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