It’s not a big move but Jackets made a minor trade which could actually have a big impact on the organization. They sent Jordan Schroeder to the Chicago Blackhawks for goalie Jean-Francois Berube.
#CBJ acquire Jean-Francois Berube:https://t.co/DBWwpTokPF
— Columbus Blue Jackets (@BlueJacketsNHL) June 27, 2018
Schroeder filled in nice as a depth player for the Blue Jackets, playing in 21 games. He was predominately an AHL player suiting up for 48 games with Cleveland where he had 36 points. The Jackets are bringing in a lot of young talent to Cleveland this season notably upfront. Cleveland is likely to have Jonathan Davidsson, Maxime Fortier, Kole Sherwood, and Eric Robinson for sure, plus a full season of Kevin Stenlund. Depending on how training camp goes they could also have Vitali Abramov there as well. That’s potentially six new forwards who weren’t on the team last season, all of whom need to be playing regularly. Schroeder doesn’t need to be there blocking a prospect.
The other aspect of this is Berube. The Monsters were a very bad team last season; they allowed 255 goals, the third most in the league and scored 188 third fewest. Their -67 goal differential was also the third worst in the league. This was a team wide failure and bringing in some of those talented forwards should help with the goal scoring issue, though they still help keeping the puck out of their net. Their team save percentage was .890 second worst in the league.
Mattias Kivlenieks was in well over his head as the starter this past season. He played 43 games and finished 48th among qualified goalies in save percentage. He’s still quite young but he would be much better off in a reduced role. This is where Berube comes in.
Berube hasn’t found success in the NHL, in 34 games he has an .898 save percentage. However he’s been much better in the AHL. Over 125 games played he’s posted a respectable .914 save percentage. In 15 games last season he posted a .920, which had he been qualified would have placed him 11th among AHL goalies. This is a substantial upgrade for the Monsters, who desperately need it.
Berube also offers insurance should one of the Jackets goalies get hurt. Sergei Bobrovsky has had back to back healthy seasons, but with his history you never know. It’s good to have at least someone in the AHL who you can call up should something like that happen. Beurbe isn’t fantastic or anything but you can trust him in the NHL a lot more than you can someone like Kivlenieks.
Hopefully it doesn’t come to that, and this move is just an AHL transaction. With all the talent starting to come through Cleveland it’s in the organizations best interest to put a winning team around them. Getting players accustomed to that winning environment is huge. Look at the Lake Erie Monsters of 2015-16. They won the Calder Cup and a large part of that team has been brought up to Columbus and the Jackets have seen themselves in the playoffs in consecutive seasons.
Getting a strong starting goalie is good step to getting back to that and hopefully JF Berube can be that goalie.
You can follow me on Twitter @PaulBerthelot