The Hockey PDOcast - The Job Ahead for the Next Blue Jackets GM

Episode Date: February 16, 2024

Dimitri Filipovic is joined by Thomas Drance to peel back all of the layers of Jarmo Kekäläinen's firing this week. They look at the particularly interesting timing of the move, what the next Blue Jackets GM is inheriting when they take over, and the job they have ahead for them. If you'd like to gain access to the two extra shows we're doing each week this season, you can subscribe to our Patreon page here: www.patreon.com/thehockeypdocast/membership If you'd like to participate in the conversation and join the community we're building over on Discord, you can do so by signing up for the Hockey PDOcast's server here: https://discord.gg/a2QGRpJc84 The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are those of the hosts and guests and do not necessarily reflect the position of Rogers Media Inc. or any affiliate.

Progressing to the mean since 2015, it's the Hockey Pediocast with your host, Dmitri Filippovich. Welcome to the Hockey Pediocast. My name is Dmitri Filipovich, and joining me on this lovely Friday before a long weekend is my good buddy Thomas Drenz. Tom, what's going on, man? Not very much, my friend. How are you? I'm good. I have to say, I think last time we were on, you made a Dante Divengenzo reference for the truly deranged folks out there. And I said there's going to be two people listening to the show to get that reference. One of them is, confirmed our pal Kenny and the discord actually created a discord account joined the PDocast server purely to let me know that he appreciated the reference a shout out Kenny you've got some stands out there Tom let's go um this is gonna be fun uh you know feeling

fresh as a daisy i had kevin woodley on yesterday and one of the benefits of that is he essentially lets me take the day off because i just wind him up and then he talks for 50 minutes and it's phenomenal and uh people love it and i love listening to it as well so i'm ready to go here i'm excited to have you in studio um it was a fun to hockey last night. It was a really fun night of hockey last night. We had Matthews had a hat trick within eight minutes of his game. What a monster. Kuturov and McKinnon heavyweight tilt, which was incredibly fun. McKinnon had his face broken essentially by like a puck those tipped errantly, comes back with just a bigger visor still plays like 24 minutes at the last night. Kuturov missed

the empty netter at the end and that was really the only blemish in what otherwise would have been like a true masterpiece. Give me my MVP performance. And we had Nikita Zerroff, of hitting Jake Wallman with a Mike Kisicki-esque gritty as well. So there was a lot going on in NHL yesterday. Something else had happened in the NHL yesterday, though, and that's what we're going to focus on here today, was the Columbus Blue Jackets, somewhat out of left field,

firing their GM, letting go of Yarmor Keklainen, finally, and we're going to get into that. I think there's a lot of interesting layers here to sort of unpack the timing of it, the decision, looking ahead for what's to come for the blue jackets. So I'll give you the floor here. What's the most interesting? component of this to you and what do you think we should sort of center this conversation around?

Well, there's a lot to unpack here. First of all, three weeks before the trade deadline is a highly unusual time to see a general manager be dismissed. Are we still doing the Brian Windhorst fingers in the air? Why would they do this right now? Yeah, a little bit. Yeah. A little bit. I mean, it feels like there were a variety of different times where this would have made sense. I mean, when the team got off to the start it did after the Babcock fiasco pretty early in the season. Now, it does seem like Davidson, the Blue Jackets president,

had some medical issues earlier in the air. So maybe he wasn't like available to take over Kekeleinen's portfolio as an interim while they conducted a search. Maybe that's a partial explanation. But three weeks before the deadline, it just, it's very, very odd. It's like firing a coach out in the first week of July. You never see it.

You know, like a hiring and firing season for these things typically. The day after you're eliminated from the playoffs is a common one, right? In the wake of a particularly devastating loss, the game after you're eliminated, right, sorry, the game after your season ends, right before Garbage Bag Day. You know, the timing of this was just very interesting to me. But, you know, I think after the Babcock thing, and do you remember the statement the Blue Jackets put out after the Babcock, they were like, Kecklein?

you know, we'll oversee hockey operations for now. Like it was a very pointed release. There was clearly dissatisfaction stemming from that coaching hire. There should have been, right? I mean, fully, richly deserved. But, you know, to me, I was just stunned to see a team pull the trigger on an executive change in mid-February. Well, the reason why I knew I had to have you on for this particular conversation is, first off, I take any opportunity to drag you into the studio and chat with them for 50 minutes.

You've had your exposure to various. organizations with interesting power structures and decision making. And also, I know that you, much like myself, spend countless amount of time mulling this stuff over and trying to kind of get to the bottom of and figure it out. And so I'm glad that you started there because I think the timing is really interesting, right? We're in the middle of February three weeks before the trade deadline. It leaves them without a GM or at least like a full-time acting one in a pivotal time of the calendar for a seller and how they don't have any massive pressing decisions to make in that regard,

although we will get into that a little bit here where that could factor in. I just think that ultimately the timing is strange to me because they certainly weren't without opportunity to get rid of him based on merit in terms of on ice results and decision making in the past. Yeah. Right? It's not like this is like, all right, well, now we finally have enough ammunition. This is enough.

Like it's gone too far. The team is bad. They've been bad for a while now. This is the fourth straight year. They're going to miss the playoffs. the past, whether the 29th point percentage now, there were 30th last year, 21st and 28th previously, right? Now, he's been there for,

we talk about the longevity of, and the turnover for head coaches. It's not quite as extreme for GMs, although we have seen, I think, like, more than half of the league's GMs change over over the past three or four years. Essentially, Yarmo was, I believe, the second longest tenured one before being fired.

He'd been there for over a decade. You know, the job he inherited, They hadn't had a single playoff win in their first 12 years of existence. They had a couple of memorable runs, obviously the one upsetting the 128 point Tampa Bay Lightning team is the one that comes to mind in terms of their only series win. They also beat the Leafs in the bubble. They had a couple really entertaining series with the Capitals and the Penguins previously. But this had been kind of accumulating for a while. And I think what's surprising to me, I guess, is they just didn't act at the start of the season.

Like it's, and I think that comes back to the strange framing of it. And funny enough, we were talking about this off air. I think you can go back and listen to you and I did a show together, like right after, I think, the Damon Severson trade, maybe. It was early June. Yeah, or maybe Proveroff. No, they'd already acquired the rights. Or I forget the timing, but all of it had been in place, right?

And Babcock hadn't been hired yet because they weren't able to hire them until July 1st. But the report had already come out. And all of it was framed around they acquired, I'm in Proverov. They traded for the rights that Damon Severson are going to sign up to date your extension. and they did that all sort of in service of convincing Mike Babcock to take the coaching job with that. Yikes. And at the time, a lot of the framing of it from people who cover the team, but also just like national voices, was, wow, look at Columbus. Like, they're sick of being on the outside.

They're finally going for it. And I remember just being bewildered at the time. And I'm pretty sure I expressed it in the show being like, I don't know, like, where this is coming from in terms of being based in reality. this team is still incredibly flawed, are way behind in their organizational cycle, and there's no real reason to believe that things are going to turn around. And so it was strange.

I thought it was a disastrous offseason in that regard, right? Like your coach literally doesn't make it to game one of the season without getting fired amid scandal. They gave up the 22nd, 80th overall picks and what should be a pick in the low 30s, either this coming draft, the following one, for an organization that generally uses those picks to find talents. Yeah.

Yeah, well, and the worst part is you take weaponry out of the one area where even of late, you'd say they've done pretty well. Yeah. And so you put all that together just to miss the playoffs yet again, and all of it is incredibly puzzling to me, right? And so, I don't know, I just find this so fascinating. Have you been following a lot of the coverage of this in terms of the way it's being kind of,

promoted or or peddled after because one of my criticisms at the time was I don't really understand why this organization and Yarmo in particular gets treated with such kid gloves by national voices, right? It seems like everyone is just always talking glowingly about it and in favor of it and then you look at the actual results and I understand like he inherits a tricky job right? Like I think there's certainly things to like along the way. But it also, I wouldn't say it was an exemplary masterclass of GMing for like this organization that's been killing it for the past decade. Well, I think there's a couple things of the in the Kecklein in sort of 10 years. He won a couple big trades, right?

I think that sort of established a reputation as like, this guy's a shrewd trade winner. He won a couple big trades. And he did something. He demonstrated the situational awareness, like the extreme version of situational awareness that we don't see enough. in the NHL and that I think is sharp, frankly, where he did the Duchayne and, like,

did the load up deal, even though Panarin and Brobrovsky were on expiring contracts, the sort of gumption to just be like, we're the Columbus Blue Jackets, we don't know how many chances we get to go for it, let's go for it now. Didn't work out in terms of them, like, going on a deep run.

But I mean, they had some success in the playoffs. They punched above their weight. They executed it like, a historical upset, right? Sweeping a 128 point team. And then it's kind of lost in the shop because I think they lost in six games. But that was a very competitive series

against the Bruins as well, right? I wouldn't say it was like, oh, it was a one and done in terms of they won this series and then just flamed out. They had a real shot that year and they went for it. But yeah, the Panarin trade was a big win. The Seth Jones trade. I mean, really, if you have Kecklein and just let him draft

and trade with Chicago. Right. Specifically in trade with the Blackhawks. But, you know, I think that's partly why I think that's partly why Kekeleinen's had a lot of rope. And I also think there's a sense of Columbus still as this scrappy underdog team. And it's a little odd because as we've seen, things have changed so much with the cap era and especially the flat cap era. And I think, you know, accelerated by what we saw during COVID in terms of public policy in Canada.

But like the Florida Panthers don't bleed Jordan Leopold, Jay Beaumester, Oliocan in quality talent. They're a destination. Right. Right. The Carolina hurricanes aren't faded to sell everyone who becomes expensive, no more than the Nashville predators are. Those teams are destinations. Players like Ryan O'Reilly would prefer to play in Nashville, frankly, than one of the big Canadian markets. I mean, I don't think we should be talking about this team in the context of they can't retain players. They can't attract players. Goddrow just sign there. You know, like there's this little brother of the NHL sort of paradigm that I think the national media filter.

But I still think the national media filters Columbus Blue Jackets conversations through and I don't think we should. Like I think this, you know, not that Columbus is a huge destination, but it's, you know, college town pretty fun. Like under the radar, not a bad spot to visit. I always have a good time when I go to Columbus. Awesome fan base. Like I actually go back.

Sick fan base. I recommend. I understand it's while you're in the midst of like accomplishing a historic feat in that lightning series, it's easy to kind of like get stuck. into that and sort of that mob mentality of like yeah we're going to go all in and cheer but go back and watch the youtube video of that like game before when they clinch the sweep that crowd is bonkers like you just get goosebumps listening to it like the anticipation of the goals once they finally scored or rupt's like it's clearly a market that that just needs a reason to care and

be invested in that group it's a great building yeah practice facility canaan aside to it I hate the cannon but like no it's a great building with like a practice rink attached to it you know like a good spot. Great arena district, the area around the arena with the bars and the restaurants is like perfect, exactly what you want from a game night experience. You know, there's a lot going for it. It just feels like after the Bobrovsky, after the Bobrovsky Panarin departures, it almost felt like they bought into it. Like they did things to make themselves a destination, whether or not they made sense with a larger plan. Godrow being sort of, well, there's been a few other. Patient Zero there.

few other instances, right, where, and I think this works as a negative in the Kekeleine and tenure when you're evaluating now after the fact, I think ties into the decision of what they're going to do moving forward. There was a bunch of sort of like difficult negotiations with young players, right? And I think he like talked at the time, I forget what the terminology used was something about like using the hammer or something as the team against an RFA to like leverage them essentially, right? And eventually a lot of young players. either wanted out or became so discontent in a variety of ways. And I don't think that necessarily, I'm not sure that has anything to do with Yarmo or

the market. It could just be entirely random, right? But I think that sort of ties into as well. It wasn't purely just that one somewhere where Panera and Bobrowski left. I think this has been a couple players now that sort of made it public that they were upset to the point where what you're seeing what's happening with David Jurecheck now. You're seeing, you know, a bit unrelated to. it, but a guy will talk about Dimitri Ronkov, like, made it public that he was

legitimately considering going back home because he just, like, felt homesick and just wasn't sure if he wanted to stay. And I don't think that had any to do with the Blue Jaggers organization. It was just a matter of, like, a guy first year in North America. But the Ryan Johansson thing. I mean, you can go back even further, but that's seven years ago, eight years ago now, but that was still Kecklein's trade. And that was another where they, you know, ground a face of the franchise caliber

prospect coming out of his ELC, and he signed the first ever second contract that literally read. Like, I remember it read because it had that. It was one of the first ones that I'd seen with the giant platform year that caused his qualifying offer to be at sort of a level you'd be happy just taking for one year and walking away. And it was the get me out of here deal, right? Like, it was the first time I'd ever seen that.

I distinctly remember it. Obviously, that ends up with the Seth Jones deal. So, yeah, I mean, the other. The other issue that you bump into in terms of long-term planning, and I think that maybe speaks to the timing of what we're about to see here, is if you're always doing the grind away on your top young talent, bridge them, keep it short type deals, you're never taking the Jack Hughes caliber swing. Now, have they ever had a Jack Hughes caliber prospect since Rick Nash?

Probably not. But this upcoming summer, there's definitely some interesting value opportunities out there. for the Blue Jackets if they decide to do business a little bit differently than they historically have with some of their young guys. We're going to circle back to that. I just want to quickly get to talking about Boone General a little bit because that was sort of like the wink wink of the timing part of this, right? Because there's been reports and there's like a belief. I don't think it's been like firmly reported, but there's a lot of speculation out there that the organization, whether it's like ownership or higher or or above Yarmow wanted to. keep, wants to keep Boone Jenner for a variety of reasons, right?

He's sort of like the face of the franchise. Mr. Blue Jacket. He was our All-Star game representative. He's been a lifer there. He's about to hit like 700 games playing for the organization, all that, all that stuff, right? And I wonder, that's why I phrase it as like, the timing here is very interesting because we're three weeks from the trade deadline. And he is a player who would imaginably be a very valued trade chip for them right now in the

next three weeks because the center market has been so. deflated. He's got a very manageable cap at under $4 million. He profiles as like the type of player that teams would value ahead of the postseason, right? He's like winning 55% of his draws generally like a pretty gritty player, right? It makes sense, the versatility, all that stuff. And so he'd be a trade chip where it would make sense for them to cash him in. And I think they should because not only is his value high right now, but he's like a 31 year old who has missed at least 15 games in each of the past four seasons and is generally a player that I think doesn't make sense for them in terms of like by the time they're going to be good what is he going to be like

as a player compared to what he's worth on the trade market right now. I understand all the intangibles for them and probably why they do value them for those reasons I mentioned. But it would be, it's just ironic to me. I'm sure this is an accumulation of things and not as simple as this. But like the one move that I would genuinely like that Yarm was made over the past couple years, which is actively exploring trading Boon Jek. being the reason why he ultimately gets fired despite all the other things that could have led to this is very ironic and and probably not the only thing happening. But I do think it makes sense, right, in terms of like, why would you fire your GM three weeks before the trade deadline? It's probably because he presented you with some sort of a deal that you didn't like or didn't want to execute it as an organization.

And that's why you did it now. Yeah, a lack of alignment. Yeah. Right. Often, often, whether or not it's based around this specific instance, A lack of alignment would certainly explain why you move on from a guy ahead of a pressure point like the NHL trade deadline. You know, I do, so I do think Boone Jenner is like Mr. Blue Jacket, right? He's been there his whole career. I do think that matters to the organization in terms of how they see themselves.

But once again, I feel like this goes back to the, you know, he likes us. He really likes us, Sally Field of it all, right? Which is, it's a flat cap league. You can't. You can't. Put yourself at the disadvantage of overvaluing someone who picks you simply because they pick you and you don't usually get picked. Like, I just don't think that's a way to run a team. Like, just because Bobrovsky wanted the sunshine and Panarin wanted New York and Deshain wanted to wear a cowboy hat and on and on.

You know, you can't, in my view, like, sort of fundamentally alter best practices for you. Like, you have to find what your best practices are and have to have. the self-confidence to replace guys and have the self-confidence to run yourself the way you need to run yourself if you're going to win in this league. I'm not trying to minimize the disadvantages that the Columbus Blue Jackets face, but on the one hand, this last few years has been so puzzling in part because, you know, from the Seth Jones trade through to some of the draft picks, you know, the success of guys like Chinakoff.

You remember when Chinikov was drafted and no one on the broadcast, the draft broadcast even like knew who he was. And he's good. He's like absolutely a player. Yeah. But you think about like Marchenko, you know, I mean, even even guys like Tarasov who's playing in net for them who, you know, was a sort of day two pick a few years ago. I mean, there's been like a fair bit of talent mind pretty effectively at the draft. There's been like the baseline of some sharp moves to set them up for the long term. It's just that, you know, over that baseline, there's been this discordant melody playing,

which is, you know, trading Bjork Strand so that you can fit in a Lion A extension or signing Goodrow and Good Branson to, you know, big, big contracts that maybe don't fit for a rebuilding team and, you know, Provorov, Severson. I mean, it's sort of been an interesting mix of moves. Well, I'm curious for your mileage on, like, what the market would be like for Jenner, right? because on the one hand, after the trades of Linholm and Monaghan, it essentially leaves, like, Pat Burbic being like, I've got a slightly used Adam Henrique. And then it's like, will the Sabres trade Casey Metalsat or will they sign him and there's this looming, like, pretty difficult arbitration case ahead as well? They're sitting in a good spot in terms of if he was available. I assume a lot of teams would be interested.

But on the other hand, thinking about it, a lot of his value for this Blue Jackets organization, the stuff we mentioned, right? Like the fact that he's been there for this long, that he's like a reliable veteran who quote unquote plays the right way and can sort of like mentor a lot of the young players they have on their roster, is the center of the organization,

is the captain of the organization. A lot of this stuff is legitimately valuable to them, I think, beyond like on-ice production. But a team like the Avalanche, for example, who I think would be very interested in terms of looking for a center, none of that stuff necessarily really applies to them in terms of functional value, right? It's like, we have a bunch of veteran players who are better than Boone Jenner and he's not going to be our captain.

And so a lot of that stuff that I think the Blue Jackets would value, a team like the Ablanch who would be theoretically interested wouldn't put as much of a premium on. So I'm kind of curious for your take on how coveted, I guess, he would be and like whether this is a matter of them making a miscalculation on turning down. like a potential treasure chest of assets or whether I'm sort of overvaluing like what the interest would be and whether this was like as contentious of a of a decision as a crossroads moment for the organization as as it's being made out to be I mean I would find it hard to believe that he would have gotten a lind home package but whatever we're going to see henrique and nick dowd go for over the course of the next few weeks is I mean boon jenner would have gotten at least that if not more especially so more especially at 3.75 like that would be viewed as

an attractive deal by two more years. Yeah, for sure. That's good stuff. And, you know, he is a center who wins a lot of draws and can do that, but he's also totally good at being a physical winger, you know, chasing down a defenseman as an F1. So, you know, I think, I think you're right. If they decided to move Jenner, if that was the call, I think there'd be huge value

there. No question in my mind. He's exactly the type of guy teams want for the players. He is. He is. Absolutely. Okay, let's take our break here. And then when we come back, we're going to jump right back into it

and hit on a bunch of other stuff about the Blue Jackets. And this week for them, you're listening to the Hockey P.D.O. cast streaming on the SportsNet Radio Network. All right, we're back here on the HockeyPedocast, joined by Thomas Dr. Rans, closing out the week. Tom, we're talking about the Blue Jackets and they're firing of your Markuket Kline in this week. And it made me think a lot about, like, organizational arcs and trajectories and stuff

we've talked about in the past on the show, but just thinking about where they're at right now in terms of like how desirable the landing spot would be for someone prospectively taking this team over and running it. I think that going from being bad and like hopeless as an NHL franchise to having a fun entertaining on ice product is actually, it's not easy, but I think that is one of the most achievable parts of a rebuilding process, right?

It's you accumulate a bunch of young talent. You hire a coach who will let them do stuff they're already good at. And you're probably not going to win that much, but at least you can sell that to your paying consumers as get in on this ride on the early stages because we're on the way up. And at least we're going to have games where you can see that talent and you can see the potential of what it's going to be and it's going to be fun. We're going to score some highlight real goals.

And everyone likes that story, right? Think about the Buffalo Sabers last year. It's so easy to gravitate and latch onto that as like, they don't make the playoffs, but this is one of the stories of the season because Tage Thompson is just hammering home a bunch of goals and Rasmus Dahlin's awesome. And this is fun to watch. Like, let's cheer for this. And I think that's one thing.

I think going from being that to being legitimately and competitive and meaningfully good is very difficult as we've seen. and that's an entirely different discussion. But I guess my question for you is, when does this Blue Jackets team become fun? Because they've been in that process of being hopeless and miserable and accumulating young players,

yet the past two years, they're 25th and 30th and 30th and 30th and expected goals generated this year as a team. And there's no part of it to me. Like there's individual components where I love watching Carol Madrenko shoot the puck. Zach Wrenski is really fun. They have the talent there.

but the sum of it is not a fun product despite the losing. And so for me, I think that's the most unacceptable and alarming part of it. Yeah. I think it doesn't help that it's clear that the Eurichick and Kent Johnson of it all are not having fun themselves. Yeah. Like, I think you have to, you know, I remember going and covering a Buffalo Sabres game, three games into the like first post-pandemic season. So I guess 2022, 23.

So this was the year before they even were interesting and good. No, 2021-22. So not last year, but the year before. Yep. And I remember a Buffalo Sabres player who I knew telling me, oh, this is great. You know, we skate fast and we don't hit. It's awesome.

And it's like, eventually you have to do more than that to win. Yeah. But when you're trying to just sort of blood some young players in the league, um, change the vibe around a team. And, and remember,

that was coming off the Jack Eichel trade and all of that controversy. Yeah, which was like a miserable workplace experience for everyone involved. People weren't going to the games

in Buffalo, which is like the honorary eighth Canadian market. I mean, it was a really grim time. And they were able to sort of flip the narrative with this fun style of hockey

and, uh, slowly win fans back to the point that you got that sort of moment next year. Now, again, they didn't level up this year. It's not foolproof.

But that's, that's that would be a good start for this group i do think you need to and and i do think this is a big part of the kek-leinen story which we'll get to after i make this point but i do think you need to at least begin to have some buy-in like if you've got this kent johnson marchenko fantilli uricic access you're going to add another probably top pick uh in this upcoming draft class finding a way to make them the stars of the show, right? Finding a way to make sure that there's some buy-in and a good vibe in terms of how those players experience your organization. I think that's at the root of being fun.

And with all the healthy scratches, with how the season is played out, it feels like the organization's been going in the wrong direction. Well, I think there's some necessary checkpoints you have to hit along the way. Like you don't you can't just be like all right we've been bad for a long time. We have a bunch of young players now we're going to try to be really good. Mm-hmm. Like there's going to be a natural progression and part of that is being entertaining, which is good because it's an entertaining product, entertainment product. Instead, I think there's like a level of apathy to the point where like it's like legitimately miserable for a lot of people, right?

And so that really stinks to see. I think like they're bad at everything right now. I'll give you their 30th in offense. in expected goals offensively, 31st in goals against defensively, 27th in O zone time, 28th in how much they give up in terms of D zone time,

28th on the power play, 26 on the PK, it's just a miserable experience, and they've got, they had ever since Torrella left, they had this sort of, they had Brad Larson for a couple years, right? And then I feel bad for Pascal Vincent

because he got thrown into a tough spot on the fly right before the season started, but he's like very clearly overmatched in his responsibilities. You could just sort of see, see from from the handling of players to like the usage and everything it is just a mess and i wonder if like the eurichick thing kind of really expedited this or boiled it over right because he was so public with his with how upset he was as well right like referencing how he's like looking at it's like that squid bird squidward me he's just like looking through the window at at some of his

peers that i'm sure he compares himself to and is keeping an eye on and they're like having fun and getting to play big minutes and stuff. And he's like, I am just sitting in the press box or going to the AHL and this isn't really what I signed up for. Right. And so, and Ken Johnson's the same. Yeah. Like, it explicably starts the season. And in Kent Johnson's case, you know, switched agents, right? So, I mean, both are sending public signals. Whether or not Kent Johnson went, you're a chick on them, right? He was sending a signal of just how unhappy he was with how things we're going. Especially when you're doing it in service of like in the Eurocheck case, like you look at

the right side and it's Severson, Goodbranson, Bowquist, and Andrew Peek. And it's like, even at this point, it's not a log jam. I think we can find, I can think carve out some minutes there for David Yerechek, right? Yeah. And as much as you're the big Andrew Peek. I'm not fan here. Well, no, you're not. But you talked about it more than I think anyone outside of Columbus did last year because

you were formulating so many I can't wait to face palm at like Andrew P, Jack Roslovich and a protected first Yeah, that became a joke That became a joke on Kinext Talk No, but I mean

You know, one of my guys And he's been heard a little bit this year But one of my guys is Nick Blankenberg Who likewise, in my view is like absolutely An NHL ready defenseman And again, there's been some injuries But I mean he's playing you know, he's playing in Cleveland and has been for most of this year.

So, yeah, I mean, it's been stilted with an awful lot of Blue Jacks defense. But you brought up torts, and I think this is an important one, because an underrated part, not an underrated part, you can't talk about Kecklein's tenure without talking about the coaching hires. Right? So he inherits Todd Richards, right, who was the, You know, long time Tampa Bay Lightning Assistant, now an assistant in Nashville. Seems like a bright guy runs a mean power play. And he worked for two more years and then they hired Torts, which ended up being inspired for what the blue jackets needed, right?

But in moving on from Torts, this like Larson, Babcock, and then the desperation pivot to Vincent. Yeah. As this club has listed the last four years, it feels like that's been the area that Kekleinen really got wrong and probably the area that ultimately made him. continuing to be an executive in Columbus untenable. Well, and probably the one that will be most imperative for whoever it does wind up being hired to nail the next coach, right? Because it's not like you're going to restart this process of, well, we messed up, we got to start over. Like there's a legitimate foundation of young talent here. Now it's up to you to develop it and put it in a position to succeed, right?

And so I think that's going to be atop the checklist. I think part of it also is you mentioned Davidson's help. And we're kind of talking about the timing of it. And I reference this off the top, but you look at their cap sheet this offseason. And Kent Johnson, Carol Marchenko, Igor Chinico, Cole Cylinger.

And then even like that old, like now the post hype prospect of Bemstrom, TechCIA, Jake Bean, like all of these guys are RFAs this summer, right? And there's been a number now of guys who had, as I mentioned, difficult negotiations

with Yarmel in the blue jackets. And so I imagine part of the timing here, and they could have done this on March 9th. So I think that's why I brought up the trade part of it as being interesting for the timing. But it makes sense to try to bring in, start the search and bring in someone who can behind the scenes, familiarize themselves,

build some initial relationships, and like evaluate, assess, and start working on this ahead of time rather than waiting till the off season to start that process. Because this is a bit of a crossroads in terms of figuring out how to get some of those contracts you mentioned where none of this is on the Jack Hughes scale, but you are in a position here where if you shrewdly evaluate who's like a legitimate piece

and how much you want to value them, you can get them locked in long term at a number right now. Because everything has been such a mess, everyone's value is depreciated to at least some degree. And you can set yourself up for like, all right, three or four years now, for now, when we're good and all these guys are in their prime, we have them at, way below whatever their market value would have been. Yeah. I mean, Kent Johnson,

for me is a perfect example where... He's really good. He's really good. Really good. Beyond, like, just like the obvious flash of, like, you see sometimes the stuff he can do with the puck, and you're like, all right,

he's definitely like a skill player. Yeah, yeah. He leverages it increasingly into, like, making positive plays for his teammates. It's not just a matter of, like, once every 10 games, you're going to see him on the highlight reel. I think he's really figuring out how to do it on a night to

basis. Yeah. And he's, that's going to continue. I mean, this guy's, this guy's legitimate. Like, he's legitimately sharp, right? He's a smart situational player in addition to the skills. And then, you know, I think there's, he can do things you've never seen before and how many guys would, can you say that about? I mean, he's a really unique talent. So, look, he's the perfect example for me because he's 21. 0.5 points per game roughly. in the NHL, which is nowhere near the sort of big home run second contract level. But when they send him down to the American League at the age of 2021, when most players are playing their first year, it's like he's clearly too good for that level, right?

He's like point in a game, point and a half plus points per game. That's exactly the guy you want to bet on, especially because he's changed agents, especially because there may be a sense that he's not committed. Like if you can find a way to buy some of his, you know, even UFA years on his next contract, like that to me is the sort of gamble that you have to make. You have to make it. Yeah. Even if your worst case scenario is Josh Norris.

Yeah. You have to make it. Yeah. I'm really curious to see how you progresses. I've heard really good things behind the scenes in terms of like how he thinks about the game and sort of like his interest in getting better, right? Beyond just like, all right. All right, I'm clearly very skilled with a puck on my stick.

And so that's just like who I'm going to be. Like I think there's a lot there to mind. He's on the ice constantly, man. You mentioned though some of the players. I mean, I've talked a lot on the show about Carol Marchenko and how cool he is and how much of a rock star he is. And he's got 36 goals in his first 109 NHL games. Like he can clearly score.

People are sleeping on Veronica. And he's like the least flashy of those three with Marchenko. And you watch Chinikov skate and shoot the puck as well. you're like, I see it. With Varankov, 23 years old, this is his first year in North America, and I said he's like, he was public at the start of the year about being unsure of whether he was comfortable staying here, whether he wanted to go home. And all he's done this year is dominated 515.

He leads the team in 515 points. He's 19th in the league in 515 points per 60. With him on the ice at 515, they're up 2816 and have a positive shot share, like 51%, which is wildly impressive when you're playing on this team. And yet, he is playing less than literally every forward that's played for them this season, other than Matthew Olivier. And you mentioned,

like when I was mentioning the coaching and the misused of some of these players, it's not as egregious because he's actually been on the team all season. But that's another example for me of like, if I'm hiring a coach and I'm a coach coming in and viewing this team, it's like, yeah, maybe this guy should just be playing more because he's making, making everyone better and his game is so mature. Like you watch him along the wall in front of the net,

dominant already. And they're just not getting nearly enough out of these players who I think individually have all the pieces and aren't being allowed to sort of put it all together functionally. Yeah. You need someone who's, you need to bring in a coach too who's going to play these guys. Like, you know,

one guy who always comes up in association with Columbus and would have probably been a good hire this past summer is like Gerard Gallant. Yeah. But Galant, we know we saw it in New York, we saw it in Florida, like playing young players isn't really his jam. Yeah. You know, that's, you need a guy.

He'd be good from like a nod bogging them down with details perspective. I feel like he would have been perfect to come in after the Severson. Right. Provov. Like, if they'd done, if that had been the higher this summer, that would have been perfect. Certainly way more functional than this. But I think the, I think this summer you need something different. It needs to be turning over things to this young group of players because this is your only way out of this mess.

Well, the other reason why it's an intriguing situation is you look at the financial flexibility. And, you know, they were jammed there. What was two summers ago after they brought? Because they spent the near 14 million on Grodrow and Grantson and had the line extension. And so they had to just give away Bjork Strand essentially. Yeah, that's tough. But beyond next season. So after next season, they only have 51 million in cap commitment.

And nearly half of that is going to be expiring contracts right after that. It's like beyond, I guess, Elvis, who I think still could be tradable because there's so many teams that are desperate for goal tending. And he's like put enough on tape to at least intrigue you. There's Werenski, Severson, and Goodrow. And those are the only long term meaningful commitments. And so you talk about that flexibility. You talk about the players we've mentioned the young forwards in particular, but also this pipeline of defense. man like we've only talked about your check because he's the only one we've seen of these guys yeah but man like

anyone that's watched him play is like i has been just glowing about matechuk and they're like i cannot wait till you watch him in the nchl another one of my guys yeah well it's a good uh good flag plant early get in there while you still can i already did it a year ago yeah i did his draft year i did as well i did as well and and i'm very excited he's developed really well since then and then a coolman's insin sposo but ep ringside had their prospect pool rank third they're going to add probably another top five pick to it this year. And I guess the point I'm making here about this is the one thing that I do think they've done well.

And I'm not sure how much of this was Yarmot's background, right? Like he had been a director of amateur scouting previously. I think he's like a good evaluated clearly of like who's good at hockey and not beyond all your quibbles about how he's managed his team. He's also had a willingness to like surround himself with other smart people who can handle other stuff. Yeah. Like Josh Flynn as his assistant.

bringing in our pal cam Lawrence to help with the draft. And so I hope that doesn't become impacted by this, right? I'm obviously a little bit biased, but I do think that's stuff to build on organizationally. And I guess that's always a concern when you're bringing in someone, whether they want to sort of clear the deck and bring in their own people versus incorporating what's already been there. Because there's always this, like, everyone has their own people.

They want to surround themselves with, right? And there's always like unease of like when you come in, whether you want to keep anyone around that had previously been there and been associated with past regimes or whether you just want sort of a fresh start. Well, it did sound like they were going to talk to people outside the building. And so, you know, I certainly, like I'm sure Rick Nash, for example, who's been a big part of Kekalinen's axis will be strongly considered. You know, I think they've developed like a pretty good core of like really sharp ex players in, sort of player development who have done a variety work with them, whether it's guys like Clark or Dorset.

I mean, I think there's a fair bit of brainpower within this organization, even though they lost Bill Zito a few years ago. But I think the fundamental change, it does make sense to go outside. It does make sense to bring someone in externally and evaluate things, especially because I do think there's some baggage. that they need to shed, sort of stemming from the departures of all those unrestricted free agents after their one run. I really do think they need like a new big picture approach because that's where it feels

like it's gotten muddled. I guess they're not. You know, like I don't hate some of their drafting. It trades in a vacuum. Like even the Proverov trade to me made some sense on the idea that, well, you, worst case scenario, you rent him for a year and a half. Yeah, they'll recoup some of it, especially. I think you can recoup most of it.

especially as an expiring, you know, midway through next season if you retain 50%. But again, you could like the individual moves, and I often did. It was the muddled big picture that I think needs to be sort of reset for them. I think they had a bit of a strange delineation between like the types of players are clearly drafting, which I like. It's like high upside skilled players who kind of skew more offensively. And then they're pro decisions in terms of the types of players they were bringing in and committing to, which sort of profiled much more as obviously like Johnny Goodrow doesn't apply to this necessarily,

but it's like we want to be this gritty, hardworking team. And that made sense a little bit when your coach was John Chortarella and you were sort of in this window of playing that way and competing. But when you're where they are now, it hasn't really made sense for a couple years. And so I'm obviously John Davidson's still being there and I'm not sure like what his involvement is going to be. But I was going to say I actually think they would really benefit from bringing in not to run the team, but like a guy like Keith Jones like what Philadelphia did where you watch the way he's navigated everything that the organization has has dealt with over the past year. And like just the messaging and kind of controlling that and just being like the PR side of it. charismatic, gregarious person that, like, knows how to talk to people and can, like, be like, it's going to be okay.

Even, like, obviously, you have your warm milk. You need the actual results eventually. Like, that'll wear off pretty quick if that doesn't accompany it. But I think you're talking about sort of changing the tone here. And I think they would benefit from that a lot. Like, I know that Yarmo was appreciated a lot. I think part of why he was handled the way he was by the media was, like, he had some of that, like, mysterious silent charisma.

to him, like a James Bond villain. But I'm talking about more like someone who can sort of go and be like, this is going to be what the next however many years of Columbus Blue Jackets hockey are going to be like and actually help convey that and paint that picture. And so I think they would benefit from that quite a bit. But yeah, I think it's a pretty high upside job, right? A lot of the stuff we've mentioned. I think so too, yeah.

Like the market, the flexibility, what you're inheriting already. I don't think, at the very least, I don't think Keckleinen's left a mess. No. For it to be cleaned up. I mean, he's left things messy, but I don't think it's a mess. I think there's a really decent foundation of talent here. And as you point out, there's like oodles of flexibility beyond next season. So, yeah, I mean, I think this should be a highly appealing job.

Well, often when a GM leaves a mess, what you're talking about is like, whoever comes in essentially can't really do anything for like at least two or three years because there's so much bad money in the books. Minimum 18 months. Even if you try to do anything, it just won't matter because, like, you look at the sharks and when Mike Greer takes over. Oh, yeah. It's like, with Mark Edward Vlasic and Logan Couture's money, it's like, it's just not going to matter what you do. This team is not going to be competitive for at least three, four years. Even, uh, even Jim Rutherford and Company in Vancouver, where it was like, at the very least you had 18 months of pain. And to escape it, you needed to hit like six home runs off, um, off a variety of depth signings.

Right. You know, like, it's doable, but incredibly improbable. Well, and not to mention teams that are in that position are often ones who have, like, mortgaged the future in terms of not having any prospects or picks because they've acquired all these players who were big ticket players past their prime. And that's not the case either. So there's no, there's no waiting period here in terms of whoever it comes in can sort of immediately figure out what the next couple years are going to be like as opposed to waiting. Well, and then you bump into the business. realities that a team like Columbus has where, you know, pretty well established

in that market at this point. Not like there's a ton of other major league competition, but you know, that's Ohio State country. Right? That's Buckeyes country. Like, you know, there is a need to not have like a 10-year

rebuild. You know what I mean? And they're now four years in. So I do think there's some impetious and pressure. Then why is every one of their players in Michigan Wolverine? Yeah, I don't know. I don't know. Yeah, they should, I mean, what Ohio Buckeyes can you think of that are in the NHL?

Ryan Kessler, Dakota, Joshua. I don't know. Do they look like Ryan Lambert here? I generally defer all of my NCAA takes to him and my colleagues, Eddie P. Ringside. All right, Tom, anything else on this, or do you want to do you want to do you want to do you want to do you want to move on, whatever you want? Well, here's my one final question for you. It's a party one. It's going to be a short one.

Okay. Dr. Sanchez from the Discord asked if you combined the rosters of the sharks and the Blackhawks, how good would they be? And I thought about this. And obviously this then implies that the sharks and Blackhawks are not, well, full help, but also implies, like do we get Taylor Hall?

There are no longer individual teams. Right. And so that leaves 31 teams, right? And I think that team would still be 31st. Yeah, I think you're probably right. I mean, hurdle, badard down the middle. You can't cobbled together a decent defense corps. Honestly.

I mean, you're still probably playing Kyle Burroughs on your second pair. Which is fine, but, you know. Yeah, I guess you could, with the forward group, though, you could conceivably make an argument that they would be better than this current version of the Blue Jackets or maybe even the ducks as banged up as they are right now. I don't know. Look, it wouldn't be very inspiring.

I'm actually stunned. It's been a really interesting year for this in that the bottom feels like it's really falling out. And what's funny is, I feel like going into the season, I thought the San Jose Sharks would be historically bad. Like, I really did think that they were materially worse than everyone else. And then October rolled around, and I was like, yeah, this Ducks team is going to be plucky. This Blackhawks team is going to be plucky and hard to break down and Bedard's going to go nuke twice a week. And now you watch this Blackhawks team. And it's like, they're never going to score a goal ever.

I think they've scored, and he obviously missed, like, what, six weeks or whatever? Yeah. I think it's even worse. I think it's like 25 in the past 20 or something like that. It's really ugly. Yeah. Well, and it looks like it. It looks like they could play 100.

I mean, I didn't watch the Pittsburgh game last night, but it looks like they could play 180 minutes and never score against any half decent defensive team. The other night against the Canucks, I was watching it, and I was cheering for them to end the period with zero shots. And you could tell in the final minute, I think Seth Jones even said as much. He was like, yeah, we were pretty embarrassed. So I was just trying to get, like, muffins from the ones.

And then the fans lost their mind. Yeah. On the, like, they were, they gave them the big Bronx cheer. Yeah. But I do feel like that wasn't their fault. You know, like, I do feel like that was outrageous circumstance. Likewise with the ducks. But yeah, I'm shocked by how bad the bottom of the league is this year,

especially because there's really only one prize to tank for. You know, it's not like there's, it's not like there's, it's not like there's, Fantilli's the consolation prize if you don't win the lottery. It's like you're either, one, one of these teams will get, Macklin and everyone else, it's kind of tough luck. It is. But I think it's part of the process as well, right?

It's not like being bad isn't purely just like a one-year thing. Well, but I don't think these teams were trying to be bad the way teams were trying to be bad last year. I just feel like there was. Well, when you try to be as bad as you were last year, though, there's going to be like a long-term ramifications of that. It's not going to be like, we're going to suck for this year. And then next year, we're going to be good. It's generally going to be a slow uphill climb. All right.

Plug some stuff on the way out. Canucks Talksportsnet.com. And sportsnet.com. Sportsnet.650. And also... I think if they go on dotCA, they can probably find a link to the show. Yeah. And then also wherever you find your podcasts. And then Theathletic.com, and that's actually correct, where I write Canucks stuff.

Got some interesting features coming down the pike. I'm traveling a bunch over the next couple weeks. So it should be a lot of fun. Yeah, that's going to be exciting. I will plug the YouTube channel, the Leandro's Heidel Deep Die with Del Pellipree's up there, along with all the other shows we've done with him this season. Also the Discord. I mentioned how Kenny made his appreciation known on the PDO guest discord about Dante DiVicenzo.

I'm sure there's others out there as well. And so those are the types of people you can go and chat with in our PDO guest community, which is very exciting. Also, as Tom's mic is off, so he's just speaking into the abyss. We'll have Tom back on. I think the next time you come on, you and I will do our annual. trades we'd like to see as our trade deadline preview here in the PDOCast with our pal Jack Fraser. So look forward to that. And we're going to have a lot of other fun trade deadline coverage

coming as well. But that's my favorite. That's my favorite show every year. It always gets absolutely hilarious. We should do this soon because. Yeah, I think we should give it more more time to marinade because sometimes we talk all trades and then we put the show out and it literally the trade happen as we put the show up as people are listening. Totally. But I've worried like over the weekend we could get one big move and then we're no we'll still have some fun the good thing about us is we've always got some three teamers cooking and it won't actually happen so we've always got material well i don't want to i don't want to be left short-handed like uh like the grizzlies last night when vince williams junior went off there you go there's a reference for kenny thank you for listening

uh have a great weekend and we'll be back next week with more of the hockey ptio cast streaming on the sports net radio network