Blue Jackets scoff at risks with deadline aggressiveness

Call him Big Deal Jarmo.

Because as the small-market Blue Jackets attempt to construct a team that can finally win at least one round, general manager Jarmo Kekalainen went big again, acquiring Matt Duchene after previously pulling off trades for Seth Jones (for Ryan Johansen) and Artemi Panarin. And Saturday, the team made another trade, for Ottawa winger Ryan Dzingel.

There is of course a significant risk/reward factor at play here as Columbus retrenches for a playoff run and the tournament itself. Evaluating their roster and their fan base, management that includes president John Davidson will apparently let it ride with pending free-agent evacuees Panarin and Sergei Bobrovsky, and why not?

There is no past to speak of, other than the stirring 16-game winning streak a couple of years ago. The future is always an amorphous concept. It is the present that informs the Blue Jackets’ decisions.

More power to them.

You could not make this up. Except we are talking about the Ottawa operation, so it is not make-believe. A tribute video for Duchene during Friday night’s first period against visiting Columbus? Please.

Duchene, who came from Colorado last season at the cost of a shot at Jack Hughes (plus) was on the Senators’ roster for 128 games. The record: 44-73-11.

A tribute next for Stan Neckar?

Which reminds me.

Neckar. Chris Tamer. Rumun Ndur.

Your assignment: Rate them as Brian Leetch’s partners.

Wait. The Maple Leafs were 10-10-2 entering the weekend since Dec. 29? And yes, though obtaining Jake Muzzin from Los Angeles was worth it, did it make sense that coach Mike Babcock, as strict a believer in left shot-right shot defense pairs as there is in the NHL, would be comfortable with the lefty on the right side of Toronto’s first pair?

Apparently asked and already answered.

So we know the Rangers will get Tampa Bay’s first-round pick, 31st overall by definition, if the Lightning win the Cup, and a second-round pick otherwise. So the Blueshirts have a vested interest in Tampa Bay’s success.

So it follows that the Rangers would be best served by Tampa Bay finishing with the league’s best record in order to secure home ice through the tournament. Which means when the teams hook up, as they happen to at the Garden on Wednesday, it is in the Blueshirts’ double-best interest (lottery) to lose.

Not for a second do I believe that skullduggery will reign. But someday and somewhere, it could. The NHL needs to take a look at whether a trade condition like this should remain legal.

Speaking of legality …

Connor McDavid received the two-game suspension he earned for his check to Nick Leddy’s head on Thursday. The whiny Oilers may object, but the decision was a righteous one.

Unless and except, that is, if the penalty is compared to the sentence the Department of Player Safety handed Flyers recidivist Radko Gudas, who received the very same two games for his two-handed chop of Nikita Kucherov’s head.

The NHL has always had a soft spot for its most notorious characters when it comes to applying supplementary discipline. It is baffling. Gudas had been suspended three times previously. The Flyers defenseman has been allowed to skate on a handful of other suspension-worthy acts.

see also

Rangers need to avoid awkward Chris Kreider deadline limbo

Chris Kreider was the only Ranger left in the room,…

But two games for him.

And two games for McDavid.

Separate but equal lives on Sixth Avenue.

Jesse Puljujarvi is on IR with a lower-body injury that may cost him significant time. So he is not likely to be dealt by Monday. But the 2016 fourth-overall winger wouldn’t have been on the move anyway, not with Oilers interim GM Keith Gretzky insisting that interested parties also be willing to pick up the final four years of Milan Lucic’s deal at an annual $6 million cap hit.

So I see that someone has suggested that Patrick Kane, a mighty, mighty good one, might be the best American-born player in NHL history, and I’m thinking, sure, if Leetch had been born in Winnipeg, Chris Chelios in Athens, Mike Modano in Prague and Pat LaFontaine in Moscow.

Finally, remember this: If Peter Holland could be traded, then anyone can be traded.