Columbus Blue Jackets: Which free agents are coming back?
By Ant Barberio
After going all in at the NHL trade deadline, the Columbus Blue Jackets didn’t see their gamble pay off. Which of their free agents could stick around?
2019 was supposed the year of the Columbus Blue Jackets. It had to be after general manager Jarmo Kekäläinen doubled down on his impending free agency departures with even more expensive trade deadline acquisitions.
It seemed like a crazy strategy, considering the better part of the franchise’s future for the next decade was mortgaged for a season they entered as the second wild card. But for a short while, the Blue Jackets were at the top of the hockey world after sweeping the Tampa Bay Lightning.
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After that first round sweep against the Tampa Bay Lightning, fans began to believe and the hockey pundits began to wonder “hey, maybe they were onto something after all”. The excitement throughout a small market town in Ohio began to rival that of the best hockey cities and it seemed the momentum behind the long-suffering franchise couldn’t be stopped.
That was then. Now, they’re the victims of an early offseason as the result of a six-game series against the Boston Bruins.
Not all was lost, considering that first round sweep will most likely be remembered as the greatest accomplishment in the young franchise’s short and often lackluster history. With the offseason now officially started and the lockers officially cleaned out at Nationwide Arena, it’s time for Kekäläinen to make the decisions he knew he was going to have to make. He was just hoping he could postpone those decisions until after the Stanley Cup parade that never happened.