The Blue Jackets have traded Ryan Johansen to the Nashville Predators for Seth Jones.
Initially thoughts on the trade after wowowowowoowowow, are this: The Blue Jackets acquired a very good young defencemen at the cost of a very good young centre.
The Jackets have acquired one of the best young defencemen in the game. Jones gives them a legit bonifide #1. He immediately becomes the team’s best defencemen, yes better than Ryan Murray. Jones is also a right handed shot, which are never easy to find.
Losing Johansen hurts; I remain a big fan of his game. But this is a great return especially considering the crap Johansen was getting from both the coach and the fans. This is no doubt the best return they could have gotten. It shores up the team’s biggest weakness. Johansen’s production is going to be hard to replace but remember this move does not drastically improve the team for this season. They are still going to finish in the bottom five in the league and get a very high impact player in the draft.
Auston Matthews is the player to dream on, but if the Jackets ended up with a Jesse Puljujarvi, Patrik Laine or Matt Tkachuk that is a corner stone forward you can build around. Hell even if they draft Jacob Chychrun the defencemen, he with Werenski could form a ridiculous second pair.
As for the immediate impact to the team, I would imagine this means a bigger role and more minutes for Brandon Dubinsky and Alexander Wennberg. Personally I would love to see Wennberg take that role and get a shot on the top line and top power play. He has the most offensive upside on the team and this is a great opportunity for him to show it.
What are your thoughts on the trade? Good move for the Jackets? Or did they hurt themselves too much offensively? Let me know.
You can follow me on Twitter @PaulBerthelot