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 Adam
Messages: 7757
Registered: August 2005
Location: Edmonton, AB
6 Cups
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| oilfan94 wrote on Fri, 19 December 2025 10:52 |
I hear Lyon's name thrown out there, but there is a new Sherriff in Buffalo. I don't think there are any more easy trades to be done with them now.
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Couple things on this:
- Do we want Lyon? He's 33, he's a relatively small goalie at 6'1, and he's almost showed well. He's got 131 NHL games but he's basically what Pickard was when we got him. Aging backup that you pray you don't have to count on to save your season. Surely there must be better options out there?
If it's 1-for-1 for Pickard, I'd do it in a heartbeat, but otherwise? I'm saving my trading chips for a better option.
- While I've long been critical of the Waterboy Kevyn Adams and have believed him to be the worst GM in the NHL for pretty much his entire tenure, I'm not sure that Jarmo Kekalainen is a massive improvement. Jarmo took over the Blue Jackets in Feb 2013 (from former Oilers exec Scott Howson), and stayed there until 2024. In all that time, they made the playoffs five times, and won a round twice. His teams exceeded 100 points just once.
When picking at the top of the draft, he did pretty well: Werenski at #8 overall, Dubois at #3 overall, Fantilli at #3 - not awful. After that, it's less impressive. Gavrikov is probably his best dept pick back in 2015. He definitely wasn't able to build the Blue Jackets through the draft.
On trades, he's not afraid to make moves - but there's just not a lot that stick out as really moving the needle other than the deal to get Panarin which probably looks REALLY good if they'd convinced him to stay. All in all, given a decade in a GM seat you'd probably hope for better.
I'm not sure that Buffalo is moving out of the bottom echelon of teams any time soon.
"Thinking that a bad team's best players are the reason the team is bad is the "Tambellini re-signing Lennart Petrell" of sports opinions." @Woodguy55
#FireBobbyNicks
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