NHL trade rumors: 3 teams who should trade for Brendan Gallagher

Columbus Blue Jackets

The Columbus Blue Jackets have been big-game hunting this offseason. They cleared a ton of cap space to try and recruit Taylor Hall to join the Blue Jackets. Ultimately, their attempt fell short, but the Blue Jackets still have over $13 million of cap space with most of their roster signed. Gallagher could be a very nice consolation prize for them.

He’s the kind of player John Tortorella loves. Gallagher leaves everything on the ice and never takes a shift off. He’s small, but he’s relentless. Gallagher’s like a pitbull guarding its owner when he has the puck. He’s hard to play off the puck. Gallagher would give the Blue Jackets an extremely impressive group of top-six forwards who could compete with anyone.

The Metropolitan Division is going to be rough next season. Last season, seven teams from the Metro made the expanded postseason. It’s not a stretch to say both wild card teams from the East could come from the Metropolitan Division next year.

The Blue Jackets desperately need to add some firepower to match the other teams in their division. Gallagher isn’t quite as good as Hall, but he’s still pretty darn good. He’d be a perfect target for a team searching for goal scorers.