CBJ Opinions

 Now that the lottery has been conducted and the Jackets know where they will be picking, some of the questions around the direction of the roster can be better analyzed. As such, an idea of what the opening night roster could look like is beginning to take shape, or at least in theory at the very least. In this exercise, I’ll be taking my first guess at predicting the opening night roster and giving a little bit of reasoning behind my logic for the lineup construction as well. Note, this prediction will be making a few guesses at some moves the Jackets may make this summer. This is merely a thought exercise and not meant to reflect reality as things will change between now and opening night. That said, I am accounting for the following moves being made that are relevant to the roster in this hypothetical world: In: D Sam Girard (trade), F Leo Carlsson (draft),  Out: F Jack Roslovic (trade), F Emil Bemstrom (trade), D Andrew Peeke (trade), F Cole Sillinger (AHL) The logic here...

After looking at who is expected to be available on the free agent market, it is more than fair to say that the Jackets would likely be underwhelmed at what their options are to fill the gap on the left side of the second defense pair. That together with the fact that the cap is only going up slightly this summer and there could be some very interesting names that become available as cap casualties and possibly even at a reduced acquisition cost. Let’s look at some of the defensemen who could be available this offseason. Ivan Provorov  Once upon a time, some in the community were probably irked that Provorov was selected by the Flyers one pick ahead of the Jackets pick. How the times have changed, after a couple solid seasons, he has fallen on hard times leading to rumors that both he and Flyers may be looking to move on. He makes $6.75 million but only has 2 years left on his deal which could make for a smart investment especially given his upside and still only being 26 years old...

Among the issues that have plagued the Jackets since John Tortorella’s departure has been the poor performance of the defense corps. The need to improve the quality of the backend players was drastically magnified this past season with injuries forcing the Jackets to dig into the depths of the Monsters depth chart. The final blow was the inability for the Jackets to bridge the gap to signing one of their big minute munchers in Gavrikov to a new deal, resulting in him being flipped to the Kings together with Korpisalo at the deadline. As such, a massive hold on the left side of the defense behind Werenski on the second pair opened that needs to be filled. There are options internally but realistically, Mateychuk/Svozil aren’t likely to be significant contributors for another season or so and other players such as Berni/Christiansen/Knazko among others are probably better suited as pure bottom pairing or AHL/replacement level players. This could force the team to go back to the market to...