Report card grades for all 31 NHL teams at the trade deadline

Columbus Blue Jackets: B-

The Columbus Blue Jackets are not creating a lot of buzz around their trade deadline, but they handled it well. They filled a lot of their depth needs at forward, as well as picked up an important piece of their blue line. The Blue Jackets are the team that ended up with forward Mark Letestu in the three-team trade involving Nashville and Edmonton. Letestu will fit in well with the bottom two lines on Columbus. The next day, the Blue Jackets were able to pull Ian Cole out of Ottawa, and then they got Thomas Vanek out of Vancouver. Columbus also flipped prospect Jordan Maletta for Ryan Kujawinski.

Ian Cole was affordable; the move only cost Columbus a prospect and a 2020 third-round pick. Cole will play on the last pair of their defense. He’s reliable enough to take pressure off players at the top of the lineup, such as Seth Jones. To obtain Mark Letestu, the Blue Jackets only had to part with a 2018 fourth-round draft pick. Vanek was the player the Blue Jackets paid the most for, giving up Jussi Jokinen and young forward Tyler Motte. Motte is the piece out of all the trades Columbus would have liked to hold on to. Motte has had limited success and is close to having a breakout performance.

General manager Jarmo Kekalainen had a very strong trade deadline day. Filling in gaps on the blue line and on the wings without taking pieces away from Columbus’ NHL lineup is a very big accomplishment. The Blue Jackets are not getting enough respect for their moves.