At the NHL level the Blue Jackets have been fantastic, at the AHL level it’s been a different story. The Cleveland Monsters have not the same success. They currently sit outside of the playoffs with 78 points, in a tight race with the Charlotte Checkers. This is a steep drop from the 97 points they had last season as they went on that run to the Calder Cup Championship.
The Blue Jackets at the NHL level have a good group of forwards and a sound group of defencmen who can skate and move the puck. At the AHL level the Monsters have a solid collection of forwards but don’t have the same type of puck moving defencemen. The Monsters leading scorer on the back-end is Dean Kukan who has 26 points, which puts him 43rd in the league. Now point totals aren’t everything, you can be a puck-moving defencemen without points, see Markus Nutivaara, but the defencemen with the Monsters don’t profile as puck-movers.
The Jackets have made it abundantly clear they like big strong defencemen. This was brought to the forefront recently as the team has brought over Gabriel Carlsson to Cleveland and signed 2014 second round pick Ryan Collins.
With those two now in the fold the Monsters have five defencemen under contract for next season.
Gabriel Carlsson – 6’4, 20 years old
Ryan Collins – 6’5, 20
Jacob Graves – 6’2, 22
John Ramage – 6’1, 26
Blake Siebenaler – 6’1, 21
The theme here is youth and size. This blue line next season is going to be big but they are inexperienced. They have two RFA defencemen in Dean Kukan (6’2, 23) and Oleg Yevenko (6’7, 26), and of those two I would imagine Kukan gets re-signed. They have three UFA’s but it seems unlikely any will re-sign. Jamie Sifers and Marc-Andre Bergeron on well over 30 and Ryan Stanton, who was acquired for Cody Goloubef hasn’t done a whole lot in his time in Cleveland.
The Blue Jackets have also
reportedly sent an offer to Vladislav Gavrikov (6’3, 21). It remains to be seen if he will accept the offer, but if he does add him to the mix of big young defencemen headed for Cleveland.
For the most part these defencemen all fit the same profile. They are big, they can skate pretty well, but they have a practically non-existent offensive game. It will be interesting to see how this all plays out next season. I've made it clear before
my thoughts on some of these players and I am not optimistic. The Jackets obviously think differently and even with all these big defencemen already on board selected another one in
Andrew Peeke in this past draft.
This summer the organization should look to add some skill to the back-end. Whether that be at the draft or an undrafted free agent or even a veteran minor league free agent. They have the size but size is not that intimidating unless it comes with skill.
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