Boone Jenner may be a sought after player at the trade deadline
Columbus Blue Jackets captain Boone Jenner is off to a solid start for his team, the only one for which he’s played in his NHL career.
His 10 points in 16 games are right in line with his career norm for production, but the Blue Jackets have not had quite the start they were hoping for. Columbus sits 10-8-2 in a crowded Eastern Conference playoff picture, and if they don’t find themselves on the right side of the bubble in the next couple of months, general manager Don Waddell could decide to become a seller at the deadline.
Jenner is in the last year of a four-year deal that carries a cap hit of $3.75 million per season, and he’s scheduled to hit the unrestricted free agency market on July 1. Between his low cap hit, expiring contract, NHL experience and physical style, Jenner represents an attractive option for contending teams who will be looking to add help down the middle when trade deadline season rolls around.
On Thursday’s episode of Daily Faceoff LIVE, host Tyler Yaremchuk and co-host and former NHL goaltender Carter Hutton were joined by NHL insider David Pagnotta to discuss Jenner’s standing as a top trade deadline target come March.
Carter Hutton: As we start to forecast and look into what’s going to happen at the trade deadline, I look at Boone Jenner. He’s got 10 points in 16 games. Is he like leading the class of someone who’s going to be targeted during this season here?
David Pagnotta: He’s going to be up there, yeah. They’re not shopping him yet. They’re not doing anything like that. They want to see where their season’s going to go, but they haven’t had any meaningful contract discussions either yet. It sounds like maybe some of the younger guys might get priority… He was a player that attracted a lot of interest last season, and they held off. He’s been battling some health stuff… If the Jackets don’t go on a bit of an upswing here, and we get to January, February… and they’re still kind of fluttering… I’m sure at that point there’s going to be some level of contract discussion that gets escalated, and then at that point they’ll figure out what they want to do with him. He is going to command a lot of interest.
You can watch the full segment and the rest of the episode here…