Scott Howson and Columbus Blue Jackets look to make fresh start with reworked line-up -NHL Update
With the release of captain, Rick Nash, and acquiring of Brandon Dubinsky and Artem Anisimov, Columbus Blue Jackets are hoping to make a fresh start without any superstar players after a trade with New York Rangers on Monday, July 23, 2012.
Nash had become fixated on leaving his original draft club during the past 2011-2012 National Hockey League (NHL) regular season and was going to at any cost. Many might think that Columbus has acted in haste while others say that they lost too much by waiting for too long.
In a total opposite reaction, general manager Scott Howson is confident of his club being refreshed with for offensive depth in an overall manner instead of having to count on one player to get the job done of many.
"It's about winning right now," Howson said on a conference call Monday night. "That's what you want to do. This is not a trade where we think we're going to be better five years from now. We think we can be better next year and we think these players can help us do that."
"I'm very pleased with the process; the market played itself out," Howson added. "We weren't going to do this deal until we got what we thought was fair value for a player of Rick's calibre. That came today. I'm glad we waited. It certainly gave us a chance to gauge what the market was."
For one, Columbus cleared up a huge burden on their salary cap by letting go of Nash’s huge $62.4 million deal which would have had him on the Blue Jackets payroll till the 2017-2018 regular season came to an end. He might be a player who can score 30-plus goals a season but an individual performance was not something that Blue Jackets needed in the end.
What Columbus needs is a team effort and getting more and more moderate to high level players balancing out the club just might be the key to getting Columbus Blue Jackets on top.
Next season will definitely be interesting to see Rick Nash in New York and Brandon Dubinsky in Columbus.
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