How good can the Blue Jackets be after signing Johnny Gaudreau?

Whether you agree or disagree with his vision and roster moves, you have to give Columbus Blue Jackets general manager Jarmo Kekäläinen credit for one thing. He is not afraid to take a risk or make every effort to improve his roster.

Wednesday’s stunning signing of unrestricted free agent Johnny Gaudreau was perhaps the biggest move of his tenure in and it has certainly raised eyebrows around the league given where Columbus finished the 2021-22 season. They were not a playoff team, nobody expected them to be major players in the free agent market (especially for Gaudreau), and there is still some debate as to how good they can actually be this season.

It is not the first time Kekäläinen and the Blue Jackets have done something like this.

Think back to the 2019 NHL trade deadline when Columbus, facing the prospect of losing Artemi Panarin and Sergei Bobrovsky after the season in unrestricted free agency, not only kept both players, but went all in by adding Matt Duchene, Ryan Dzingel, Keith Kinkaid, and Adam McQuaid in an effort to make the playoffs. They did, and then pulled off one of the most stunning upsets in Stanley Cup playoff history when they swept a record-setting Tampa Bay Lightning team in four games.

This is the offseason version of that.

Lucky number 13 for @johngaudreau03