Arace: It was a splashy week in Columbus for the Blue Jackets and the Crew. Let's discuss
Last week was a splashy one for the pro teams in Columbus. Blue Jackets general manager Jarmo Kekalainen made waves with two trades that landed a pair of top-four defensemen. In between, Crew president and general manager Tim Bezbatchenko nailed a deep dive when he lured an in-his-prime center back out of eastern Europe.
Let’s discuss.
The bigger story
The week began with news that Mike Babcock, who has won 700 NHL games, two Olympic gold medals and one Stanley Cup, will replace Brad Larsen behind the Jackets’ bench. There is as yet no official announcement. The Jackets are waiting for Babcock’s contract with the Toronto Maple Leafs to expire June 30, according to multiple reports. By waiting, the Jackets avoid compensating the Leafs, who fired Babcock in the fall of 2019.
I don’t care for the choice of Babcock, 60, who has been linked to incidents of verbally abusing his players. Couldn’t Kekalainen have dug up the next Jared Bednar, and brought in a fresher voice? Or couldn’t he have hired a veteran with less baggage and more humility?
Psychological warfare aside, Babcock can flat-out coach. It’s easy to ding him for his lack of playoff success over the past decade – he'll fit right in here, eh? – but he will bring structure and accountability. In his last job, after he did his part to tank for Auston Matthews, it didn’t take him long to turn the young Leafs into a 100-point team. He will help some Jackets develop in the way that he helped Morgan Rielly, among others. He will run the crispest practices in the league. And the Jackets will be one of the best teams in the league on the faceoff dot.
Defensive upgrades
Tuesday, the Jackets acquired defenseman Ivan Provorov from the Philadelphia Flyers in a three-way deal. Seventy-two hours later, they acquired defenseman Damon Severson from the New Jersey Devils in a sign-and-trade deal.
Knee-jerk reaction on Provorov: Wait, wasn’t he the guy who boycotted Pride Night in Philadelphia on religious grounds? This was not lost on local fans. Sheesh. First, there’s Babcock, who drove Red Wing Johan Franzen to a nervous breakdown (according to Franzen), and then, as Pride Month gets underway, there’s Provorov? There seems to be a disconnect here between the hockey operations department and the young urbanites who might like hockey.
It also seems like there is a whiff of desperation emanating from the Kekalainen administration, which has produced one playoff series victory in 11 years. Still, Provorov and Severson are huge upgrades for a Jackets’ defense, which last year gave fans Dick Tarnstrom flashbacks.
One can argue that neither Provorov nor Severson is a first-pair defenseman. And one can argue that Severson, who will begin collecting on his eight-year, $50 million contract after his 29th birthday, will not be worth the value of his contract when he gets on the other side of 30 and begins regressing.
But one cannot argue that the Jackets defense is now bigger, better and vastly more experienced. Provorov and Severson are durable, and they eat minutes. With a healthy Zach Werenski, a monster prospect in David Jiricek and more talent in the pipeline, the defense is beginning to make sense. And all it cost Kekalainen for the new acquisitions was a first-round draft pick (22nd overall), a conditional second-round pick and a third-round pick.
Of course, the Jackets still don’t have a top-line center and their starting goalie, Elvis Merzlikins, might have been the worst No. 1 in the league last year. Even with Babcock’s soaring, soaring, soaring genius, it’s difficult to see the Jackets jumping seven teams in the East and gaining a toehold as a wild card next season. Especially with Buffalo and Ottawa on the rise.
Center/winger Alexandre Texier is returning from France. Russian bull Dmitri Voronkov, a center, is making the jump from the KHL. The Jackets have the No. 3 overall pick in the upcoming draft, when they may find a long-term solution to the oldest problem they have, the hole in the middle of their top line.
Here’s a question: Right now, are the Jackets better than the Red Wings?
Worldwide search ends in Croatia
Bezbatchenko has some young, dynamic talent evaluators/analytics guys watching drone video on 50 screens 24 hours a day, when they’re not traveling. He credited assistant GM Issa Tall and scouting/recruitment director Neil McGuinness for zeroing in on center back Yevhen Cheberko, 25, who is playing in the top division of the Croatian league.
Two days after the Jackets traded for a Russian defenseman who boycotted Pride Night in Philadelphia, the Crew announced that they’d reached an agreement to sign Cheberko, a Ukrainian national whose hometown, Melitopol, is under Russian occupation.
The Crew have a longstanding need for a left-footed center back and Cheberko fills the bill. While the need is now pointed, given the Crew’s injury-riddled backfield, the hunt for Cheberko has been a monthslong process for Tall, McGuinness and Bezbatchenko. If they’re good at their jobs, they might have dug up a real gem. I suspect they’re good at their jobs.
One thing that is cool about Crew coach Wilfried Nancy is that, unlike his predecessor – or, for that matter, Babcock – he has not whined about what players he is lacking. Rather, Nancy has adjusted from week to week and challenged his charges to play out-of-position, and to adapt, to foster resilience for the greater good.
It’s a process. The Crew is shifting through as smoothly as they can while, suddenly, the Jackets are grinding their gears. In both cases, help is on the way, and we’ll see where they go.
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This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: NHL, MLS acquisitions of a different flavor for Blue Jackets, Crew
