The Blue Jackets have placed Lukas Sedlak on the injured reserve. Sedlak hurt himself at practice on Monday and suffered a high ankle sprain. He will be out six weeks.
#CBJ says Lukas Sedlak will miss six weeks w an ankle injury, suffered in practice today. Big blow. My guess is Zac Dalpe centers 4th line.
— Aaron Portzline (@Aportzline) October 23, 2017
Sedlak was centring the fourth line, having a nice start to the season. He has two goals and a 58.97% Corsi at 5 on 5, the sixth highest on the team. He was also a regular on the penalty kill averaging just under a minute per game.
In the short-term the Jackets have recalled Markus Hannikainen from Cleveland. They have also recalled Jordan Schroeder. Schroeder was placed on waivers yesterday as his conditioning stint ended. He was placed on waivers before Sedlak was injured and the Jackets did not know they would need a body so quickly. Schroeder will need to clear waivers before he can officially be recalled by the club.
Losing Sedlak creates a big hole at centre ice for the Blue Jackets. They were already weak at centre, and this makes things much worse. Nick Foligno, a winger for the entirety of his NHL career has already been shifted to centre and now they need another player to do the same. Until they find a long-term solution they do have some players that they can experiment with. First of all both Boone Jenner is naturally a centre, he could slide him over. He would however be forced to play on the fourth line, though that would create one dynamic fourth line with Sonny Milano and Pierre-Luc Dubois.
Speaking of Dubois, he could easily slot over to centre. The Blue Jackets drafted him thinking he could develop as a centre and Dubois spent last season in the QMJHL learning the position and playing it exclusively. He is already on the fourth line so the Jackets could shift him over and not mess with any of the other lines. The team may not want to do that however as they gave Dubois a chance at centre during the pre-season and John Tortorella and the staff did not like what they saw. They preferred him as a winger.
Another option would be to use either Zac Dalpe, as Portzline suggests, or Schroeder at centre. Both have experience down the middle and could slot right into that fourth line. While both players would be fine as fill-ins for a few games, six weeks is a long time, and the Jackets should be looking to make a move to improve on them.
This is obviously going to spark the Matt Duchene talks again. The Blue Jackets are in a position where they have to make a move, and with Colorado having a decent start to the season they don’t need to move Duchene right now. The price is still going to be high and the Jackets have to evaluate whether that price is worth it or if they can afford to roll with one of the options listed above.
Other trade options for the Jackets could include Kyle Turris of Ottawa, who the Senators are having a hard time getting a contract extension done. There is Alex Galchenyuk in Montreal who the Canadiens seem to be falling out of favour with. Any one of these players would be fit in nicely on the second line, and could slide Foligno back over to the wing. Then you can afford to play a Dalpe or Schroeder on the fourth line and not have to worry about them as much.
As far as depth options go there doesn’t appear to be much available that would be a significant upgrade over what the team has. I think the best option would be to try Dubois or Jenner at centre and see if they can find success there and if not Dalpe and Schroeder can cover for a few games as they look to make an upgrade.
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