I would do this trade in a heartbeat. I think that means Jackets would decline immediately. Beaucage has flat-out struggled in the AHL and Blankenburg already has NHL experience. If you add to it that Beaucage has one more year of professional experience, this makes zero sense for Columbus.

Look at Columbus RD going into next season. Unless Gudbranson is a healthy scratch making 3 mill or Jiricek is in the AHL again (doubtful), Columbus could try and move a defenseman for a forward or goalie. Beaucage is 22 and will be a fine bottom 6 player.

I agree with everything but that last sentence. His production in the AHL has been nowhere near where it needs to be to warrant a sniff at an NHL lineup.

Columbus needs fewer bodies, period. They’ve got an influx of players aging out of junior and coming from college who will be in the AHL this year, plus Voronkov finally coming over from the KHL and Texier returning. Beaucage doesn’t move any needles so I don’t see an interest there. Blanks is probably destined for Cleveland himself, although I could see him being kept as the 7th since he can play both sides. There also may be some motivation to keep a former UMich captain around for Fantilli’s rookie season to help ease his transition. Though they didn’t actually overlap in Ann Arbor, we have footage from the draft of someone calling Blanks on speaker and him and Fantilli essentially fangirling each other.

All that to say, no to Beaucage and probably no to moving Blanks specifically at least this year. Peeke and/or Boqvist are more likely to be available. Also, doesn’t Colorado need depth at forward pretty badly?

We need depth players at both D and F. I would argue our need at foward is slightly more than at D. But trust me, if Beaucage plays an NHL game for us this year something has gone very, very wrong.

I definitely feel like there’s a depth trade to be made between these two teams. Columbus has a ton of bottom six caliber forwards and obviously so many defensemen.

Oh I very much agree with you there. And for a 4th-6th round pick we're probably willing to dance. 4th round pick in 2025 for Chinokov maybe?

I would hope for a bit more than that for him considering he was a 2020 first round pick, but I’d certainly be willing to move him.

I figured it would take a big more. But I could see that being a target for us.