Columbus Blue Jackets acquires Jeff Carter in easy pickings, gains great boost in line-up –NHL Update
There is no doubt about Columbus Blue Jackets being one of the weakest teams in the National Hockey League (NHL) and in desperate need of revolutionary reforms. Its prayers were suddenly answered on Thursday when it acquired Philadelphia Flyers’ top scorer,
Jeff Carter, in a trade move it could hardly digest at first.
Columbus ended the 2010-2011 regular season as the 13th place team in the Western Conference and was not anywhere near making the playoffs with only 81 points as it was able to win a minor 34 games out of the total 82 played.
General manager of Blue Jackets, Scott Howson, also feels the same way and puts the fans as his reason for the move.
"I think the time has come for us to do something like this to try and bring an immediate impact on our team", he said. "I don't take trading away a Jake Voracek, a 21-year-old player who's got tremendous upside, or the eighth overall pick, lightly. But
our fans have been very patient. It's been 10 years now and we just had to do something that's going to make us better right now".
According to Howson, the talks for this sort of trade were in process of negotiation over the past six-months and look so sudden due to the magnitude of the trade that happened.
"These are two elite players (Carter and Richards) to be traded in one day, and it's a little bit unprecedented in our League," Howson said about Philadelphia’s twin dealing on Thursday.
Carter’s teammate, Mike Richards, and now former captain of Flyers, was sent to Los Angeles Kings for two players and a second-round pick.
Columbus, if observed, did not really let go of too much for Carter, but really had a good deal.
It traded 21-year-old Jakub Voracek, who was also a top scorer with 46 points in the last season along with two picks in the upcoming 2011 NHL Entry Draft, the number eight pick in round one and number 68 in round three.
Jeff Carter remained top on Philadelphia’s franchise with 66 points last season, including 36 goals and 30 assists.
He pairing with Blue Jackets’ top player, Rick Nash, will certainly allow Jackets to grow into a better franchise.
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