Blue Jackets' signing of Johnny Gaudreau sends tremors through the NHL | Michael Arace
As it turns out, Erik Gudbranson was not the Blue Jackets’ No. 1 target.
Tremors rippled through the hockey world Wednesday afternoon when word leaked that the Jackets had signed left winger Johnny Gaudreau, the best player available on the free-agent market.
“Johnny Hockey,” as Gaudreau is commonly known, is different than Johnny Football. He is different in the way that lightning is different than a lightning bug. (Apologies to Mr. Twain.)
It is not a stretch to say that the Blue Jackets have acquired the best left winger in the world right now.
Welcome, Johnny Jacket.
Johnny Gaudreau is an elite left winger on Columbus Blue Jackets roster
Gaudreau, who will turn 29 in a month and is in the peak of his prime, is a measurably better player than Patrik Laine, 24, who is approaching his prime.
Laine had 56 points in 56 games with the Jackets last season. Gaudreau had 115 points in 82 games with the Calgary Flames. Gaudreau had eight fewer points than Connor McDavid. If Gaudreau merely maintains something close to his career pace (1.01 points/game) for a few years, he will have bigger seasons than Artemi Panarin and place himself in the career strata of, or beyond, that of Rick Nash.
Johnny Hockey’s advanced metrics are sick.
With the possible exception of Panarin, the Blue Jackets have never had an elite offensive player of this caliber. Granted, Gaudreau is not a center. But he’s not unlike Chicago’s Patrick Kane in his ability to drive the play forward, carry the puck into the offensive zone, create space for his teammates and make plays at high speed, and in traffic.
Kent Johnson, one of the Jackets’ first-round draft picks last year, is projected to have similar attributes. If he is indeed another playmaking winger, it will alleviate, if not render moot, the most pressing need in the history of the franchise. And that is a bona-fide, top-line center, the rarest of talents.
Put it this way: Cole Sillinger can pivot the top line if he has the skill set of Gaudreau or Johnson on his left. No problem. With plenty of energy left to kill penalties.
The Gaudreau acquisition is so big, it’s almost hard to believe if you are a Jackets fan. Your team has been in 16 draft lotteries and never won the No. 1 pick. Your greatest high was a first-round playoff victory – a sweep over the mighty Tampa Bay Lightning – and it was followed by the greatest exodus of talent in franchise history. From verdant life to instant death.
Jarmo Kekalainen went “all in” and took his shot at a deep playoff run in that spring of 2019. He burned through draft picks to acquire Matt Duchene and Ryan Dzingel, among others, at the trade deadline. The Jackets got to the second round, lost in six games to the Bruins, and off went Sergei Bobrovsky, Panarin, Duchene and Dzingel into the free-agent market. Bob, Bread and Duchene were the top three UFAs on the market that year, and they got paid. Somewhere else.
My heart goes out to fans of the Calgary Flames, the team that drafted, developed and gave a stage to Johnny Hockey. Gaudreau reportedly turned down an eight-year contract worth $10.5 million a year from the Flames because he wanted to be closer to his family in South Jersey.
Johnny Hockey's signing makes Columbus an NHL destination
Columbus does not have Calgary’s hockey history. But our city knows what it’s like to be spurned. It has been our pedigree. See: the great exodus of 2019. See: Adam Foote, Jeff Carter, Seth Jones, Josh Anderson, Pierre-Luc Dubois, and so on, and on. It sucks.
In other NHL cities, hockey fans are having a difficult time processing the Gaudreau signing. He was a Flyers fan as a kid, so why didn’t he wind up in Philadelphia? (Cap problems.) What happened with the other destinations he was said to be interested in – Newark, New Jersey, and Elmont, New York? What happened to the Devils and the Islanders? (He chose otherwise.)
Here in central Ohio, the news of Johnny Hockey’s arrival has unleashed incredible joy. It’s an utterly new and different feeling. It’s like the Rangers getting Panarin or the Maple Leafs getting John Tavares. But it’s more intense.
It makes Columbus a destination rather than a port-of-call. Finally.
Gaudreau signed with the Jackets for seven years at $9.75 million per. He took less money than was reportedly offered in Calgary, Newark and Elmont.
I’m not going to get into the relative merits of these places versus Columbus. I’m tired of that conversation. Those who don’t understand Columbus can think whatever they like. And have a nice day.
Blue Jackets are still pursuing a deal with Patrik Laine
For Jackets things, the second emotion after unbridled joy was abject dread: Does the Gaudreau signing, which puts the Jackets about $3 million under the salary-cap ceiling, mean the team isn’t going to sign Laine?
Kekalainen and team president John Davidson are adamant that they will get a Laine deal done. If they do, oh, my. Stay tuned.
Laine can sign his qualifying offer for $7.5 million for one year and compel the Jackets to trade him. Or, he can play one year with Johnny Hockey, rack up goals and then take the UFA route out of town.
Laine could also choose to sign a long-term deal and be another lethal winger on a team that is poised to change its history. There is talent here now, much of it young and promising. A window of Stanley Cup contention is not at hand, but it may be nigh. It is now fathomable.
In a span of a few days, striker Cucho Hernandez made his Crew debut and the Blue Jackets signed Johnny Hockey. Hernandez, who has scored three goals in his first two games with his new team, is a rare beast – a 23-year-old striker, coming into his prime who was signed away from an English Premier League side.
In relative terms, Hernandez may be a bigger story for Major League Soccer. In absolute terms, Gaudreau is the more massive signing for Columbus, and I use the dear word “massive” with calculation. Unlike Hernandez, Gaudreau is the best player at his position in the world, in the best hockey league in the world.
They now share a home, at a moment in time that will be marked.
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This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Blue Jackets' Johnny Gaudreau makes Columbus an NHL destination
