Is Patrik Laine being shopped?
When scouts are around, rumors start flying around like gnats. Sometimes they're annoying, and sometimes they are legit, the rumors I mean.
So, when it came to the media's attention that scouts from a few different teams, including the Edmonton Oilers, Vegas Golden Knights, Nashville Predators, Arizona Coyotes, Detroit Red Wings, Winnipeg Jets, Los Angeles Kings, and Washington Capitals were all in attendance, well, the rumors starting buzzing.
Edmonton was the team that was in Columbus the most, with Adam Boqvist apparently in their sights. Some in the national media even think they were looking at Elvis Merzlikins. Merzlikin's agent is Edmonton-based, and it is being speculated that he wants a change of scenery. Whether that's true or not, who knows?
But the big fish rumor that started floating around is that the Washington Capitals are interested in Patrik Laine. There isn't a team in the league that wouldn't be interested in him, let's be honest.
Per Sportsnet's Elliotte Friedman on 32 Thoughts, The Capitals might be sniffing around Columbus about a trade. He says it's unclear who the exact name is but with Laine's tough start to the season, his name has popped up. You might remember he missed a few weeks due to a concussion from a dirty hit, and then came back and hasn't played well. He was even a healthy scratch at one point.
Some people who watch the Jackets want them to blow it up, but is that the right decision? Is trading a superstar like Laine the right decision? Is it time to trade someone like Patrik Laine to shake things up?
It's no secret the young Finn has struggled this year. He says he's healthy and recovered from his concussion, but if you listen to his interview at the top of this article, you can tell he's frustrated. He knows his play isn't up to standard, he's his own worst critic. He doesn't need us to tell him that.
Laine has been heating up a little bit in terms of scoring goals. He's scored in 3 of his last 4 games and has a total of five. But it's not the lack of goal-scoring that people worry about, it's the defensive lapses that have people on edge. Keeping pucks in the zone when needed, not beating a guy one-on-one, forcing pucks to his teammates when he should just shoot. All of these seem fixable with good coaching.
The rumors of Washington being interested in Laine come on the heels of an interesting development in the nation's Capital. Evgeny Kuznetsov was a healthy scratch recently, with the Caps coach calling it a "mental reset." Kuznetsov hasn't had a good year, with just 9 points in 19 games. Might the Caps and Jackets swap struggling stars? The two circumstances have trade rumors popping up everywhere. Maybe a change of scenery would be good for these two. Officially, no credible sources have linked the two teams together about a trade.
So the question is, Would trading Patrik Laine shake things up and give the CBJ a spark? Laine was a late scratch against the Kings due to illness, is it a coincidence that the CBJ played the two best periods of the year in his absence? In the game he was a healthy scratch, they were beaten soundly by the Philadelphia Flyers, however.
Something needs to change for the Columbus Blue Jackets. Firing the coach in his first year isn't an option while firing a GM mid-season does nothing for the on-ice performance, and GM changes rarely happen anyway. But trading players, especially players who are struggling to get their game going, absolutely happens.
To be clear, I'm not advocating that the CBJ trade Patrik Laine, but it's clear something needs to happen somewhere.
For now, we will sit back and wait for something to happen, and if it does, we hope the Jackets get the best deal possible.
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