Aaron Portzline of The Athletic: With Jack Johnson‘s trade request made public, it puts more pressure on GM Jarmo Kekalainen.
“It’s the same with (Jack) as it is with anybody else on our team,” Kekalainen said. “We’ll make a trade when we have something that makes sense for the Blue Jackets. That’s our job.”
The Blue Jackets are in a win-now mode and won’t interested in trading for draft picks unless they are certain that they could trade those assets immediately for defensive help.
One GM said he wasn’t certain that contending teams view Johnson as a top-four defenseman.