Oversaturated Market Hurting Jackets

[Virtual Jarmo]

When can too much of a good thing be a bad thing? Ask Columbus Blue Jackets' General Manager Adam Burke and he'll tell you. "It's starting to [tick] me off," was all Burke would say about the team's inability to trade one of its defensemen. With youngster Connor Murphy knocking on the door in Springfield of the American Hockey League and Brad Stuart serving as a healthy scratch, the Blue Jackets definitely have a problem.

The strength of defensemen in recent drafts has made it nearly impossible for the Blue Jackets to make any moves into the new year, as teams are happy with where they're at. The Blue Jackets, solidly in the playoff picture despite a minus-5 goal differential, want to upgrade their forward group with some additional defensive prowess. Unfortunately, their chief trading chips are all defensemen and the market simply isn't there for that position.

"Connor may not be fully ready yet," Burke said when asked about his 2011 first-round pick Connor Murphy, "but he's starting to put us in a real bind." In 29 games with the Springfield Falcons, Murphy has 17 assists, but is a -9. Burke, however, isn't worried about the negative. "Plus/minus is a team stat. It's not indicative of what Connor has done at that level. He's playing a physical game, he's averaging 31 minutes per game, and he's contributing offensively. He's doing everything we expected him to do when we went a little bit off the board and drafted him."

The biggest issue for Murphy is that he's blocked by seven capable defensemen at the NHL level. The casualty of the team's defensive depth has been Brad Stuart, who has been scratched for most of January. Following the team's head-scratching trade of Francois Beauchemin to Phoenix for the very expensive Tomas Kaberle, Stuart was the one who sat when Dylan McIlrath came back from suspension. In an effort to spark offense, Sergei Gonchar has remained in the lineup.

"I have to move one of these guys and do it quickly," Burke said, indicating that he might be willing to trade a defenseman below his market value. "I'll take a grinder at this point. I don't like our fourth line and we clearly have problems when a guy like Mattias Ohlund is -18. I know it's a team stat, so that means we have a big problem on our team."

The Blue Jackets had preliminary negotiations with Winnipeg to acquire Logan Couture or Sean Couturier, but those never materialized. "We didn't match up and Winnipeg wanted a defenseman we were hesitant to move," Burke said of the negoations. "We've reached out to a couple of other teams, but they're happy with their defensive situations. We may need to expand our horizons and look to trade somebody like Dylan [McIlrath] or Erik [Gudbranson], just so we can open up a spot and get some help up front."

Burke attributes the trading issues to the caliber of defensemen who have been in the drafts since 2010. "Too many good players. You're talking about 180 spots on any given night and probably 35 good defensemen in each draft. Add in the veteran guys who have been around the block and it has created an oversaturated market. Very few teams have below average players in their defense corps."

Another pressing issue around Columbus is the future of Joonas Donskoi. Donskoi has played well, but has seen large variations in his ice time and is a restricted free agent on a team that has created salary cap troubles for itself with the additions of Gonchar and Kaberle. "Right now, Ken [Hitchcock] is having a hard time finding a spot for him. We like a lot of things about him, but his development has leveled off and he can't crack a top-six role without an injury or suspension."

Burke admits a lack of focus over the holidays that has been detrimental to the team. For starters, the ill-advised Kaberle deal took the team from being in decent shape with the cap to having very little wiggle room. Adding to that, buyouts may be an option, and those are never a good idea. They will really limit the team's financial flexibility. Burke hopes that pro-ration will help unload some of the players he needs to move.

"Some of these guys are bargains at 50% of their salary, especially since we aren't looking for great pieces in return. Gonch has 12 points in 29 games for us. Project that to the rest of the season and he's going to give you 25-plus points the rest of the way. The playoffs are all about special teams and he'll be a helpful powerplay contributor. He has value. A lot of it for three million dollars."

Burke has been trying to find teams to trade with but admits that it's a seller's market. "The deals we saw were bad teams dumping veterans. That's not going to benefit us at all. A couple lateral moves. I'd settle for a lateral move at this point."

Knowing that other general managers would be reading the press clippings, Burke added one final quip, "I think teams are afraid to trade with me. They're afraid that I prey on them because I smell blood. Fact is that right now, I'm not looking to prey on anybody. I need to make moves for whatever I can get. That should ease their minds a little."